LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
DAVIS 


HISTORY 


OF  THE 


REPUBLICAN  PARTY 


BY 


GEORGE    0.    SEILHAMER 


VOL.  I. 


NARRATIVE  AND  CRITICAL  HISTORY 

1856-1898 


JUDGE   PUBLISHING   CO. 

110  FIFTH  AVENUE 
NEW  YORK 


THE  WINTHROP  PRESS 
NEW  YORK 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


THE  CREATIVE  PERIOD. 

PAGE 

I.  GENESIS  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY 1-18 

The  Wilmot  Proviso — The  Mexican  War  and  the  Democracy — Attitude  of  Politi- 
cal Parties  in  1848 — Free  Soil  Revolt  of  the  Barnburners — Compromise  Measures 
of  1850 — President  Pierce  and  the  Repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  of  1820 — 
The  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill — Complete  Triumph  of  Slavery — Despair  of  the  North 
— Eli  Thayer — Organization  for  the  Kansas  Conflict — Governor  Reeder  and  the 
Border  Ruffians. 

II.  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1856 19-32 

The  Nomination  of  James  Buchanan — First  National  Republican  Conventions 
— Colonel  Fremont — Republican  Candidates  for  the  Vice-Presidency — The  Plat- 
forms Contrasted — Campaign  Medals — Contentions  of  the  Canvass — Assault  Upon 
Senator  Sumner — The  Kansas  Conflict — Republican  Leaders  of  the  Period — Results 
of  the  Elections — The  Virulence  and  Vituperation  with  which  the  Republicans 
were  Assailed. 

III.  DEVELOPMENT  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PARTY         .         .         .       33-48 

The  Dred  Scott  Decision — Pro-Slavery  Attitude  of  the  Supreme  Court — Effects 
of  the  Decision — Kansas  Governors — Reeder,  Shannon,  Geary,  and  Walker — The 
Lecompton  Constitution — Democratic  Opposition  to  It — Failure  of  the  Conspiracy 
— Douglas  and  Lincoln — The  Congress  of  Secession — Union  Soldiers  in  Congress — 
Confederate  Military  Leaders — Prominent  Men  in  the  36th  Congress — Political 
Effects  of  the  Lecompton  Conspiracy — John  Brown's  Raid  on  Harper's  Ferry — 
Attempts  to  Hold  the  Republican  Party  Responsible  for  Brown's  Acts — Helper's 
Book,  "  The  Impending  Crisis  " — Republican  Strength,  not  Weakness,  Results. 

IV.  THE  SECOND  REPUBLICAN  CONVENTION         ....       49-64 

Nominations  in  1860 — The  Charleston  Convention — Republican  Organization 
Complete — The  Chicago  Convention — William  H.  Seward — Signs  of  Opposition  to 
His  Candidature — The  Candidates — Enthusiasm  of  the  New  York  Delegation — 
Weed  and  Evarts — The  Republican  Wigwam — Organization  of  the  Convention — 
The  Platform — Naming  the  Candidates — The  Ballots — Analysis  of  the  Vote — 
Lincoln  Nominated — Causes  of  Seward's  Defeat — Abraham  Lincoln — Hannibal 
Hamlin — Enthusiastic  Reception  of  the  Ticket. 

V.  THE  LINCOLN  AND  HAMLIN  CAMPAIGN  ....       65-73 

Shades  of  Opinion  in  the  Canvass — Mr.  Lincoln  During  the  Campaign — 
Republican  Enthusiasm  and  Oratory — Seward  and  His  Friends — Hostility  of  the 
Commercial  Class  to  Republican  Success — Campaign  Medals — The  Wide-A wakes 
— The  Illinois  Rail-Splitter — The  State  Elections — Analysis  of  the  Presidential  Vote. 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS 

PAGE 

DOCUMENTARY  HISTORY  OF  THE  EPOCH         .....       74-84 

The  Wilmot  Proviso — Slavery  Clauses  in  the  Democratic  Platform,  1852 — Whig 
Declaration,  1852 — Republican  Platform  of  185G — The  Philadelphia  Nomination — 
Acceptance  of  the  Philadelphia  Nomination- — Republican  Platform  of  1860 — Mr. 
Lincoln's  Letter  of  Acceptance. 


THE  WAR  PERIOD. 

I.  SECESSION        .         .         .         . 85-97 

The  Conspiracy  in  the  Cabinet — Buchanan's  Last  Annual  Message — Judge  Black 
— Reconstruction  of  the  Cabinet — Disintegration  of  the  Thirty-sixth  Congress — 
Efforts  at  Compromise  in  Congress — Concessions  of  the  North — An  "  Embassy  " 
from  South  Carolina — The  Peace  Commission — Responsibility  of  the  Republican 
Party — Demoralization  of  Northern  Sentiment — Fears  of  Conspiracies — The  Elec- 
toral Count — Lincoln's  Unexpected  Appearance  in  Washington. 

II.  REPUBLICAN  LEADERS  OF  1861 98-108 

Lincoln's  Personality — Unfavorable  Impressions — Formation  of  the  Cabinet — 
Inauguration — The  Cabinet  Received  with  Disfavor — Seward  and  Lincoln — Chase 
and  Lincoln — Distrust  of  the  President — The  Thirty-seventh  Congress — The  War 
Governors — Impending  Changes  in  Repiiblican  Leadership. 

III.  THE  WAR  FOR  THE  UNION 109-129 

Lincoln  Without  a  Policy — Seward's  Dominating  Ideas — Forts  Sumter  and 
Pickens — Lincoln  Assumes  Full  Responsibility — Phases  of  the  Slavery  Question—- 
The Peace  Advocates — Elections  of  1862 — Emancipation — Greeley's  Embarrassing 
Course — The  Cabinet  Divided — McClure's  Comments  on  the  Proclamation — Demo- 
cratic Hostility  to  the  War — Compensated  Emancipation  Refused — Suspension  of 
the  Habeas  Corpus^Democrats  Want  an  Armistice — The  Conscription  Act — 
Vallandigham — The  Draft  Riots — Elections  of  1863. 

IV.  THE  THIRD  REPUBLICAN  CONVENTION  ....   130-143 

Opposition  to  Lincoln's  Nomination — Chase  a  Candidate — The  Pomeroy  Circular 
— Chase  Withdraws — The  Cleveland  Convention — Hamlin  and  Lincoln — General 
Butler — Lincoln's  Preference  for  Andrew  Johnson — Fremont's  Letter  of  Accept- 
ance— Lieutenant-General  Grant — The  Baltimore  Convention — Dr.  Breckinridge — 
Credentials — The  Platform — Lincoln  and  Johnson  Nominated — Dickinson — Johnson 
— General  McClellan's  Nomination. 

V.  THE  LINCOLN  AND  JOHNSON  CAMPAIGN          .         .         .         .  144-155 

Gloomy  Outlook  when  the  Canvass  Opened — Democratic  Hopes — Sentiments  of 
Belmont,  Bigler,  and  Seymour  at  Chicago — The  Jewett-Greeley  Peace  Fiasco — 
Object  of  the  Negotiations — Resignation  of  Secretary  Chase — Democratic  Conspira- 
cies— Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle — Objections  Made  to  McClellan's  Nomination- 
Lincoln  and  McClellan — McClellan's  Body-guard — McClellan's  Dismissal — The 
Soldier  Candidate  of  the  Peace  Party — Turn  in  the  Tide — Union  Victories — Elec- 
tion Responses  to  the  War  Bulletins — Montgomery  Blair — His  Unpopularity — The 
Pressure  for  His  Removal — Lincoln's  Intervention  Demanded  by  the  Politicians — 
— Vallandigham  Insists  on  the  Chicago  Platform — Results  of  the  Elections. 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS 

PAGE 

DOCUMENTARY  HISTORY  OF  THE  EPOCH      .....  156-159 

Republican  Platform  of  1864 — Mr.  Lincoln's  Address — Democratic  Platform  of 
1864. 


THE  PERIOD  OF  RECONSTRUCTION. 
I.  THE  THIRTEENTH  AMENDMENT 160-176 

The  Thirty-eighth  Congress — Schuyler  Colfax,  Speaker — Cox  and  Long — Henry 
Winter  Davis  and  Robert  C.  Schenck — Grant  Made  Lieutenant-General — Ashley 
and  the  Amendment — It  Passes  the  Senate — General  Henderson — Defeated  in  the 
House — Opponents  and  Champions — Holman,  Wood  and  Randall — Pendleton — - 
President  Lincoln's  Message — Reconsidered  in  the  House — The  Debate — Mr.  Cox's 
Able  Argument — The  Vote — Ratification  of  the  Amendment. 


II.  PEACE  177-184 

The  Hampton  Roads  Conference — Lincoln's  Second  Inauguration — Close  of  the 
War — Last  Confederate  Hopes — Assassination  of  the  President — Mr.  Lincoln's 
Character — His  Ideas  of  Reconstruction — A  New  Announcement  to  the  South  That 
Was  Never  Made. 


III.  PRESIDENT  JOHNSON'S  POLICY 185-200 

Installation  of  Andrew  Johnson — His  Characteristics — Intimations  of  a  Rigorous 
Policy — Proclamation  of  Amnesty  and  Pardon — The  Wounded  Seward  and  Preston 
King — Seward's  Speedy  Recovery  and  Remarkable  Energy — He  Dominates 
the  President — Seward  and  Johnson's  Plan  of  Restoration — Provisional  Governors 
— Governor  Holden  of  North  Carolina — Judge  Sharkey  of  Mississippi — The  Reor- 
ganization of  the  Southern  States — They  Accept  the  Terms,  but  Disregard  Them — 
Legislation  Hostile  to  the  Negroes — Course  Pursued  in  Mississippi,  Georgia,  Ala- 
bama, Texas,  South  Carolina,  and  Florida — The  Two  Virginias — Creation  of  the 
State  of  West  Virginia — Joint  Committee  on  Reconstruction — Failure  of  the  Lincoln 
Plan  of  Restoration — Attempts  to  Re-enslave  the  Blacks — Secretary  Seward's  Dis- 
appointment. 


IV.  THE  CONGRESS  AND  THE  PRESIDENT     .....  201-220 

Meeting  of  the  Thirty-ninth  Congress — Dissatisfaction  with  the  President's  Policy 
— Thaddeus  Stevens — Charles  Sumner — Their  Leadership — New  Men  in  the  Two 
Houses — Delegations  from  the  Southern  States — Mr.  Stevens's  Theory — Henry  J. 
Raymond,  the  Champion  of  the  Administration — Hurtful  Democratic  Support — 
Shellabarger's  Reply  to  Raymond — The  Specific  Act — The  Democratic  Position — 
Establishment  of  the  Freedman's  Bureau — Administration  Republicans — The  Civil 
Rights  Bill — General  James  H.  Lane — The  Fourteenth  Amendment — The  Tenure 
of  Office  Bill — The  Reconstruction  Acts — Riot  in  New  Orleans — The  Fortieth 
Congress — Military  Government  for  the  South. 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS 

PAGE 

V.  IMPEACHMENT 221-233 

Character  and  Acts  of  President  Johnson — Cabinet  Changes — The  Philadelphia 
Convention  of  1866 — The  Arm-in-Arm  Fiasco — Mr.  Raymond's  Last  Effort — 
Northern  and  Southern  Conventions — Leaders  For  and  Against  the  Administration 
— James  Speed — Address  of  the  Southern  Loyalists — "  Swinging  Around  the  Cir- 
cle " — The  President's  Stump  Speeches — Soldiers'  Convention  at  Cleveland — Sol- 
diers' and  Seamen's  Convention  at  Pittsburg — Efforts  at  Impeachment  in  Congress 
— Removal  of  Secretary  Stanton — The  President  Impeached  by  the  House  of 
Representatives — Tried  by  the  Senate — The  Managers  on  Behalf  of  the  House — 
The  Counsel  for  the  President — Impeachment  Fails — A  Mistaken  Remedy. 

DOCUMENTARY  HISTORY  OF  THE  EPOCH        .....  234-243 

Fourteenth  Amendment  to  the  Constitution — Reconstruction  Act  of  the  Thirty- 
ninth  Congress — Supplementary  Reconstruction  Act  of  the  Fortieth  Congress — 
Supplementary  Reconstruction  Act  of  July  19,  1867 — Amendatory  Reconstruction 
Act  of  March  11,  1868. 


THE  PEKIOD  OF  RESTORATION. 

I.  THE  GRANT  AND  COLFAX  CAMPAIGN 244-257 

Fourth  Republican  National  Convention — General  Grant — Grant  and  Johnson — 
Organization  of  the  Chicago  Convention — Sickles  and  Hawley — The  Platform  of 
1868 — General  Logan — Contest  for  the  Vice-Presidency — Wade  and  Colfax — 
Popularity  of  Schuyler  Colfax — Tender  of  the  Nominations — Democratic  National 
Convention — Pendleton — Chief  Justice  Chase — The  Intrigues — Nomination  of 
Horatio  Seymour — Frank  P.  Blair,  Jr.,  for  Vice-President — The  Campaign — 
Analysis  of  the  Result — The  Electoral  Count — Louisiana — The  Fifteenth  Amend- 
ment— Inauguration  of  President  Grant. 

II.  THE  PUBLIC  CREDIT 258-270 

War  Finance  and  Currency — The  Demand  Notes — Suspension  of  Specie  Pay- 
ments— Measures  of  Relief — The  Legal  Tenders — Elbridge  G.  Spaulding — The 
Democratic  Contention — Republicans  Opposed  to  the  Measure — Popularity  of  the 
Greenbacks — Value  of  the  Legal  Tender  Notes  to  the  Government — Fluctuations 
in  Gold — The  National  Banking  System — Constitutionality  of  the  Legal  Tender  Acts 
— Payment  of  the  National  Debt  in  Coin — Secretary  McCulloch — Secretary  Boutwell 
— Efforts  at  Funding  the  National  Debt — Panic  of  1873 — The  Greenback  Craze — 
Failure  of  Congress  to  Afford  Relief — Election  of  a  Democratic  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives— The  Resumption  Act  of  1875 — Demonetization  of  Silver. 

III.  DIPLOMATIC  RELATIONS  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES     .         .         .  271-282 

Unfriendliness  of  Europe  During  the  Civil  War — England's  Hostility — The 
Trent  Affair — English  and  French  Neutrality — Mr.  Dayton's  Indignant  Protest — 
Recognition  of  the  Southern  Confederacy — Ocean  Belligerency — Failure  of  the 
Johnson-Clarendon  Treaty — President  Grant's  Recommendations — Hamilton  Fish 
— The  Joint  High  Commission — Treaty  of  Washington — Settlement  of  Pending 
Difficulties  with  Great  Britain — Purchase  of  Alaska — Opposition  to  the  Treaty  in 
the  House — The  United  States  and  Russia — Treaty  for  the  Annexation  of  San  Do- 
mingo— -Mr.  Sumner's  Hostility  to  the  Treaty — Sumner  and  Grant — Reactionary 
Influences  of  the  Period. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

IV.  THE  SOUTH — FIRST  DECADE  AFTER  THE  WAR        .         .         .  283-296 

Georgia  Repudiates  the  Fifteenth  Amendment — Consequent  Action  of  Congress 
— Outrages  in  the  South — Origin  of  the  Ku-Klux  Klan — Mr.  Cox  on  the  Ku-Klux 
— Strength  of  the  Organization — Ku-Klux  Outrages  in  North  Carolina — Condition 
of  South  Carolina — Disorders  in  Georgia  and  Alabama — Outrages  in  Mississippi — 
Condition  of  the  South  in  1874— The  Carpet-baggers— Judge  Black  on  Carpet-bag 
Government — His  Impeachment  Denied — Responsibility  of  the  Democratic  Party — 
Legislation  of  Congress— General  Amnesty  and  Civil  Rights — A  Democratic  Recog- 
nition of  Organized  Intimidation  and  Terrorism. 

V.  THE  GRANT  AND  WILSON  CAMPAIGN 296-308 

Republican  Discontent — The  Liberal  Republican  Movement — Convention  at 
Cincinnati — Horace  Greeley  Nominated  for  President  and  B.  Gratz  Brown  for  Vice- 
President — Republican  National  Convention  at  Philadelphia — President  Grant  Re- 
nominated — The  Opposition  to  Vice-President  Colfax — Henry  Wilson  Nominated — 
The  Republican  Platform — Democratic  National  Convention  at  Baltimore — Indorse- 
ment of  the  Cincinnati  Ticket  and  Platform — Grant  and  Greeley — The  Canvass — 
Mr.  Greeley's  Tour — Results  of  the  Autumn  Elections — Greeley's  Overwhelming 
Defeat — -His  Death — The  Electoral  Count. 

VI.  Six  YEARS  OF  CONGRESS '  309-318 

Organization  of  the  Forty-first  Congress — Conspicuous  Members — Mr.  Blaine, 
Speaker  of  the  House — Repeal  of  the  Tenure  of  Office  Act — Change  in  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  District  of  Columbia — New  Members  of  the  Forty-second  Congress — 
The  Salary  Grab — Credit  Mobilier  Scandal — The  Exposure  and  its  Consequences — 
Eminent  Men  Implicated — Senate  and  House  in  the  Forty-third  Congress — Death 
of  Charles  Sumner — Two  Epochs  Contrasted. 

DOCUMENTARY  HISTORY  OF  THE  EPOCH 319-326 

Republican  Platform  of  1872— Liberal  Republican  Platform,  1872— Supple- 
mentary Civil  Rights  Bill. 


THE  PERIOD  OF  REACTION. 

I.  REVOLUTION  IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES      .         .         .  327-333 

The  Forty-fourth  Congress — Michael  C.  Kerr,  Speaker — Noteworthy  Changes  in 
Both  Houses — Failure  of  the  Amnesty  Bill — Andrew  Johnson  Again  in  the  Senate — 
New  Members  in  the  Forty-fifth  Congress — Failure  of  the  Army  Appropriation  Bill 
in  the  Forty-fourth  Congress — The  Use  of  Troops  at  the  Polls — Coinage  of  the 
Silver  Dollar — Organization  of  the  Forty-sixth  Congress — Changes  in  the  Senate 
and  House  of  Representatives — A  Powerless  Democratic  Majority. 

II.  THE  HAYES  AND  WHEELER  CAMPAIGN 334-346 

Incipient  Movement  for  a  Third  Term  for  General  Grant — Possible  Republican 
Candidates  for  President — Mr.  Blaine — The  Mulligan  Letters — Senator  Morgan — 
Secretary  Bristow  and  the  Whisky  Ring — Organization  of  the  Republican  National 
Convention  of  1876 — The  Platform — Nominations  and  the  Ballots — Rutherford  B. 
Hayes  Nominated — William  A.  Wheeler  for  Vice-President — Rise  of  Samuel  J. 
Tilden — His  Methods  and  Nomination — The  Campaign — Doubtful  Results  of  the 
Elections. 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS 

PAGE 

III.  THE  ELECTORAL  COUNT 347-364 

The  Disputed  States — Visiting  Statesmen — Opinions  on  the  Mode  of  Counting 
the  Electoral  Vote — Committees  Appointed  by  the  House  and  Senate — Electoral 
Commission  Bill — Processes  that  Led  to  an  Agreement — Plans  of  the  House  Com- 
mittee— Justice  Davis — Obstacles  in  the  Way  of  an  Agreement — The  Senate  Plan 
— A  Commission  not  a  Tribunal — All  Plans  Hinge  on  the  Question  of  Justice  Davis's 
Bias — The  Plan  Agreed  Upon- — The  Commission  Constituted  and  Organized — The 
Count  Begun — The  Florida  Case  Heard — The  Cases  of  Louisiana,  Oregon,  and 
South  Carolina- — The  Cipher  Dispatches  and  Attempt  at  Bribery. 


IV.  ADMINISTRATION  OF  PRESIDENT  HAYES  .....  365-374 

The  Cabinet — Secretary  Sherman  and  Resumption — Civil  Service  Reform — 
Early  Appointments  and  Removals — The  Spoils  System — Thomas  A.  Jencks,  the 
Pioneer  Civil-service  Reformer — The  Commission  of  1871 — Competitive  Examina- 
tions Introduced — Restriction  of  Chinese  Immigration — Propositions  Affecting  the 
Election  of  President  and  Vice-President  and  the  Method  of  Counting  the  Electoral 
Votes — Rule  Adopted  in  1881. 


V.  THE  GARFIELD  AND  ARTHUR  CAMPAIGN 375-392 

Polititical  Rivalries  in  1880 — General  Grant  a  Candidate  for  a  Third  Term — 
The  Delegates  to  the  Republican  National  Convention — The  Unit  Rule  in  the 
Republican  National  Committee — Chairman  Cameron's  Arbitrary  Ruling — Opening 
of  the  Convention— Chairman  Cameron's  Speed) — Senator  Hoar  Presides — Rules 
Against  the  Unit  Rule — Lively  Parliamentary  Contests — Mr.  Conkling's  Mischievous 
Resolution — The  Contested  Seats — District  Representation  Adopted — The  Platform 
—  The  Nominating  Speeches — Roscoe  Conkling  Nominates  General  Grant — General 
Garfield's  Speech  Nominating  John  Sherman — The  Ballots — Garfield  Nominated — 
Chester  A.  Arthur  for  Vice-President — The  Candidates — General  Hancock  Nomi- 
nated by  the  Democrats — The  Campaign — Restilts  of  the  Elections. 


DOCUMENTARY  HISTORY  OF  THE  EPOCH         .....  393-407 

Republican  Platform  of  1876 — Democratic  Platform  of  1876 — Republican  Plat- 
form of  1880 — National  (Greenback)   Platform,  1880 — Democratic    Platform    of 

1880. 


THE  PERIOD  OF  DEFEAT  AND  RECOVERY. 
I.  THE  REPUBLICAN  FEUDS  OF  1881-2 408-419 

Appointment  of  Collector  Robertson — Resignation  of  Senators  Conkling  and  Platt 
— Long  Contest  in  the  New  York  Legislature — The  Senators  Defeated — Assassina- 
tion of  President  Garfield — A  Stalwart  of  the  Stalwarts — Comments  of  the  News- 
papers— Republican  Feud  in  Pennsylvania — -Revolt  of  1882 — Cleveland  and 
Folger — Contest  in  New  York — Discontent  in  Other  States — Causes  of  Republican 
Reverses — Mahone  Movement  in  Virginia — President  Arthur's  Cabinet — A  Success- 
ful Administration. 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS 

PAGE 

II.  PEESIDENT  ARTHUR'S  ADMINISTRATION 420-428 

Cause  of  Hill's  Attack  on  Mahone — The  Struggle  for  the  Control  of  the  Senate — 
Changes  in  the  Forty-seventh  Congress — Both  Houses  Republican — Legislation — 
The  Interstate  Commerce  Commission — Passage  of  the  Penclletou  Civil-service 
Reform  Bill — Tariff  of  1883 — Report  of  the  Tariff  Commission — Changes  in  Tariff 
Rates — Efforts  to  Pass  the  Morrison  Tariff  Bill— Changes  in  the  Forty-eighth 
Congress — Waiting  for  the  Presidential  Campaign — Congress  and  Parties  Adrift. 

III.  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1884 429-445 

General  Benjamin  F.  Butler  the  First  Candidate  Nominated — In  Favor  of  Green- 
backs and  Against  Monopoly — Butler's  Arraignment  of  the  Old  Parties — Potency 
of  Populistic  Theories — Arthur  and  Blaine  as  Presidential  Candidates — The  Repub- 
lican National  Convention — A  Great  Threshing  Machine — Claims  of  the  Arthur 
and  Blaine  Delegates — Opening  of  the  Convention — Contest  for  Temporary  Chair- 
man— Graphic  Description  of  the  Scene — Causes  of  the  Contest — General  Hender- 
son Permanent  President — Changes  in  the  Rules — The  Platform — The  Nominating 
Speeches — Judge  West's  Speech — Arthur  Named — The  Ballots — Blaine  Nominated 
— How  Maine  Received  the  News — General  Logan  for  Vice  President — Cleveland 
and  Hendricks  Nominated  by  the  Democrats — "Tell  the  Truth" — The  Campaign — 
Causes  of  Blaine's  Defeat. 

IV.  PRESIDENT  CLEVELAND'S  ADMINISTRATION      ....  446-458 

An  Inexperienced  Executive — The  Cabinet — The  Forty-ninth  Congress — President 
Cleveland's  Vetoes — Interstate  Commerce  Commission — The  White  House  Wed- 
ding— An  Accomplished  "  Master  of  Ceremonies  " — Fiftieth  Congress — Tariff  Re- 
vision— President  Cleveland's  Tariff  Message — Effect  of  the  Message — The  Mills 
Tariff  Bill — Protection  or  Free  Trade  Becomes  the  Dominating  Issue. 

V.  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1888 459-468 

The  Democrats  Take  the  Lead — Democratic  National  Convention  at  St.  Louis — 
The  Republican  Party  "  Struggling  for  Life  " — Eulogies  of  President  Cleveland — 
Irish  Flattery — Nominating  Speech  of  Daniel  Dougherty — Taxation  is  Robbery — 
Cleveland  Renominated  by  Acclamation — The  Democratic  Platform — Allen  G. 
Thurman  for  Vice-President — Republican  National  Convention  at  Chicago — The 
Presidential  Candidates — Organization  of  the  Convention — The  Platform — Ballot- 
ing— Analysis  of  the  Voting — Depew  Withdraws — McKinley's  Protest — Blaine's 
Telegrams  Read — Benjamin  Harrison  Nominated — Levi  P.  Morton  for  Vice-Presi- 
dent— The  Candidates — Democratic  View  of  the  Campaign — Elements  of  Discontent 
— General  Harrison's  Election. 

DOCUMENTARY  HISTORY  OF  THE  EPOCH         .....  469-486 

Republican  Platform  of  1884 — Democratic  Platform  of  1884— Republican  Plat- 
form, 1888— Democratic  Platform,  1888. 


THE  PEIIIOD  OF  DISCONTENT. 
I.  PRESIDENT  HARRISON'S  ADMINISTRATION  .....  487-498 

The  Fifty-first  Congress— Thomas  B.  Reed— Coinage  Act  of  1890— Bland  Silver 
Coinage  Act  of  1878— The  Purchase  of  Silver— Me Kinley  Tariff  Act  of  1890— 
William  McKinley— Features  of  the  McKinley  Tariff — Reciprocity — International 
Conference  of  1889 — Act  of  1890 — Reaction — The  Fifty-second  Congress — Bland 
Free  Coinage  Bill — A  Do-nothing  Congress. 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS 

PAGE 

II.  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1892 499-508 

Republican  National  Convention  at  Minneapolis — The  Candidates — Platform — 
Opposition  to  Harrison — Mr.  Elaine's  Candidature — Dramatic  Scene  in  the  Conven- 
tion— The  Ballot — Harrison  Nominated — Attempt  to  Stampede  the  Convention — 
Whitelaw  Reid  Nominated  for  Vice-President — Democratic  National  Convention — 
Grover  Cleveland  the  Favorite — A  Virulent  and  Bitter  Platform — The  Presidential 
Candidates — Cleveland  Nominated — Adlai  E.  Stevenson  for  Vice-President — The 
People's  or  Populist  Party — An  Aggressive  Campaign — Republican  Measures 
Assailed — Result  of  the  Election — A  Democratic  Triumph. 

III.  PRESIDENT  CLEVELAND'S  SECOND  ADMINISTRATION         .         .  509-527 

Effects  of  Mr.  Cleveland's  Election — The  Fifty-third  Congress — President  Cleve- 
land on  the  Financial  Disorders — Repeal  of  the  Silver  Purchasing  Act — The  Oppo- 
sition to  Repeal — A  Battle  for  Free  Silver — Coinage  of  the  Seigniorage — Wilson 
Tariff  Bill — -Committee  on  Ways  and  Means — A  Disappointing  Measure — Income 
Tax  Feature — Change  in  the  Rules  of  the  House — The  Wilson  Bill  in  the  Senate — 
Amendments — Arguments  Against  the  Income  Tax — Sugar  Trust  Scandal — The 
Tariff  Bill  in  Conference — President  Cleveland's  Remarkable  Letter — Indignant 
Response  of  Mr.  Gorman — The  Bill  as  Passed  a  Humiliating  Surrender — The 
President  Allows  it  to  Become  a  Law — Another  Letter — Repeal  of  Reciprocity — 
Reaction — -The  Fifty-fourth  Congress — Failures  of  the  New  Tariff — Condition  of 
the  Treasury. 

IV.  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1896 528-539 

Free  Coinage  of  Silver  a  Party  Menace — Bolt  of  Free  Silver  Prohibitionists — 
Popularity  of  William  McKinley — Republican  National  Convention  at  St.  Louis- 
Opposition  to  McKinley — The  Platform — Mr.  Foraker's  Nominating  Speech — The 
Ballot — Analysis  of  the  Vote — The  Gold  Plank — Garret  A.  Hobart  for  Vice-Presi- 
dent— Democratic  National  Convention — Silver  Men  Reject  Hill  for  Temporary 
Chairman — Senator  Daniel  Chosen — Contest  Over  the  Platform — Free  Silver 
Triumphs — Mr.  Bryan's  Speech — Candidates — The  Ballots — Bryan  and  Sewall 
Nominated — The  Campaign — Mr.  McKinley  at  Canton — Bryan's  Tours  and 
Speeches — The  Candidates  Contrasted — Mark  Hanna — Democratic  and  Populist 
Fusion — Result  of  the  Elections. 

V.  OPENING  OF  A  NEW  EPOCH     .......  540-547 

The  Fifty-fifth  Congress — Quick  Passage  of  the  Dingley  Tariff  Act — Changes 
in  the  Duties — Legislation  of  the  Extraordinary  Session  of  Congress — Annexation 
of  Hawaii — The  Cuban  Question — Insurrections  in  Cuba — Revolution  of  1895-98 — 
American  Sympathy  with  the  Cubans — The  Case  of  the  Competitor — President 
Cleveland's  Attitude — The  Question  of  Belligerency — Resolutions  in  the  Fifty- 
fourth  and  Fifty-fifth  Congresses — President  McKinley's  Course — Destrviction  of  the 
Maine — War  With  Spain — Beginning  of  a  New  Epoch. 

DOCUMENTARY  HISTORY  OF  THE  EPOCH 548-565 

Republican  Platform  of  1892 — Democratic  Platform  of  1892 — Demands  of  the 
Populists,  1892 — Republican  Platform  of  1896 — Democratic  Platform  of  1896. 


LIST  OF  STEEL  ENGRAVINGS. 

PAGE 

John  C.  Fremont Frontispiece 

Abraham    Lincoln    Facing  49 

Lincoln's  Cabinet  "  98 

Group  of  War  Governors "  107 

Salmon  P.  Chase   "  130 

William  H.  Seward "  188 

Edwin  M.  Stanton   "  221 

U.  S.  Grant "  244 

Horace    Greeley   "  297 

Benjamin  Harrison    "  459 

William    McKinley    '. "  528 

ILLUSTRATIONS  IN  THE  TEXT. 

Portrait  of  Robert  C.  Winthrop   , 4 

"  Thomas  H.  Benton   5 

"  Millard  Fillmore   8 

"  Archibald  Dixon   10 

"  Sam  Houston  12 

"  General  Nathaniel  P.  Banks 13 

"  Eli  Thayer    15 

"  Andrew  H.  Reeder 16 

"  James  Buchanan   19 

Portrait  Medal  of  John  C.  Fremont 21        v 

Portrait  of  William  L.  Dayton 22' 

Fremont  Medals,  1856   24 

Portrait  of  Charles  Sumner 26 

"  Roger  B.  Taney 34 

"  General  John  W.  Geary 36 

"  Stephen  A.  Douglas 38 

"  Abraham  Lincoln    39 

"  Robert  J.  Walker 42 

"  John  Brown   43 

View  of  Harper's  Ferry 44 

Portrait  of  John  Sherman          47 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE. 

^."        Portrait  of  Caleb  dishing; 49 

JJ     —             "           William  H.  Seward 52 

"           Thurlow  Weed 54 

The  Kepublican  Wigwam,  1860 55 

Portrait  of  Joshua  K.  Giddings 57 

Lincoln's  Birthplace 62 

Portrait  of  Hannibal   Hamlin    63 

"           William  M.  Evarts 67 

"           E.  D.  Morgan 68 

Campaign  Medals,  1860 70 

Hartford  Wide- Awakes 71 

Portrait  of  Andrew  G.  Curtin   72 

"           Jeremiah  S.  Black 87 

"           John  J.  Crittenden   89 

"           John  C.  Breckinridge 96 

"           Charles  Francis  Adams 99 

"           N.  B.  Judd   101 

"           Benj.  F.  Wade 102 

"           Salmon  P.  Chase 104 

"           Simon  Cameron   105 

"           Lyman  Trumbull 105 

"           Thaddeus  Stevens  106 

"           John  A.  Andrew   108 

"           General  M.  C.  Meigs 112 

"           Horace  Greeley   117 

"           C.  L.  Vallandigham   122 

"           Samuel  C.  Pomeroy 131 

u           General  Benjamin  F.  Butler 134 

"           Andrew  Johnson   136 

«           General  U.  S.  Grant 138 

"           Daniel  S.  Dickinson   142 

"           Horatio  Seymour 145 

"           George  N.  Sanders  147 

"           General  George  B.  McClellan 150 

"           Admiral  D.  G.  Farragut   152 

"           Montgomery  Blair 152 

"           Schuyler  Colfax 161 

"           Henry  Winter  Davis 162 

"           General  Kobert  C.  Schenck 163 

"           E.  B.  W^ashburne   164 

"           General  J.  A.  Garfield 164 

"           General  John  B.  Henderson 165 

"           James  M.  Ashley 168 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE. 

Portrait  of  Samuel  S.  Cox 170 

"  George  S.  Boutwell Ill 

"  Francis  P.  Blair   177 

"  General  W.  T.  Sherman 179 

"  Abraham  Lincoln   181 

"  William  W.  Holden   191 

"  General  J.  M.  Schofield 193 

"  William  L.  Sharkey   193 

"  General  James  Longstreet    198 

"  Henry  J.  Kaymond  205 

"  Samuel   Shellabarger 207 

"  Eeverdy  Johnson 209 

"  Henry   Wilson    211 

"  General  O.  O.  Howard 212 

"  James  H.  Lane 214 

"  General  Philip  H.  Sheridan 216 

"  Roscoe  Conkling 217 

"  General  Darius  N.  Couch 224 

"  James    Speed 225 

"  General  J.  D.  Cox  227 

"  James   F.   Wilson    229 

"  Edwin  M.  Stanton    230 

"  John  A.  Bingham   231 

"  Hamilton  Fish   275 

R.  E.  Fenton 298 

"  James  G.  Blaine   311 

"  Oliver  P.  Morton 336 

"  Rutherford  B.  Hayes   340 

"  William  A.  Wheeler 341 

"  Peter  Cooper 346 

"  Thomas  W.  Ferry   349 

"  Chester  A.  Arthur 389 

"  William  H.  Robertson   409 

"  Galusha  A.  Grow   414 

"  John  A.  Logan 442 

"  Levi  P.  Morton 467 

"  Thomas  B.  Reed   488 

"  Garret  A.  Hobart 531 

"  Mark  Hanna  .  538 


THE  CREATIVE  PERIOD. 
I. 

GENESIS   OF   THE   REPUBLICAN    PARTY. 

The  Wilmot  Proviso — The  Mexican  War  and  the  Democracy — Atti- 
tude of  Political  Parties  in  1848 — Free  Soil  Revolt  of  the  Barn- 
burners— Compromise  Measures  of  1850 — President  Pierce  and 
the  Repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  of  1820 — The  Kansas- 
Nebraska  Bill — Complete  Triumph  of  Slavery — Despair  of  the 
North — Eli  Thayer — Organization  for  the  Kansas  Conflict — 
Governor  Reeder  and  the  Border  Ruffians. 


HE  first  foundation  stone  of  the  Republican  party  was  a 
hurried  amendment,  offered  in  the  29th  Congress,  that 
became  famous  as  the  Wilmot  Proviso.  The  declaration 
that  a  state  of  war  existed  between  the  United  States 
and  Mexico  was  approved  May  13,  1846,  and  on  the  fifth  of  August, 
President  Polk  sent  a  special  message  to  Congress,  in  which 
he  suggested  that  "  the  chief  obstacle  in  securing  peace  was 
the  adjustment  of  a  boundary  line  that  would  prove  satisfactory  and 
convenient  to  both  Republics."  In  this  message  he  asked  that  a 
sum  of  money  should  be  placed  at  his  disposal,  to  be  used  at  his  dis- 
cretion, in  the  adjustment  of  the  term's  of  peace.  As  a  precedent,  the 
President  cited  the  example  of  Mr.  Jefferson,  who,  in  1803,  asked 
and  received  a  special  appropriation  from  Congress  for  the  acquisi- 
tion of  Louisiana.  After  the  message  was  read,  Mr.  McKay,  of 
North  Carolina,  Chairman  of  the  Ways  and  Means,  introduced  a 
bill  into  the  House  directing  that  two  millions  of  dollars  be  appro- 
priated, to  be  "  applied  under  the  direction  of  the  President  to  any 
extraordinary  expenses  which  may  be  incurred  in  our  foreign  inter- 
course." The  bill  followed  the  simple  phraseology  of  the  Jefferson 
act  of  1803,  word  for  word.  An  animated  debate  followed,  in  which 
Robert  C.  Winthrop  said  he  "  could  not  and  would  not  vote  for  this 
bill  as  it  now  stood.  ...  It  was  a  vote  of  unlimited  confidence  in 
an  administration  in  which,  he  was  sorry  to  say,  there  was  very  little 
confidence  to  be  placed."  As  Mr.  Winthrop  had  voted  three  months 
before  that  war  existed  by  the  act  of  Mexico,  Mr.  Adams  declared 
that  he  now  differed  from  his  colleague  with  a  regret  equal  to  that 
with  which  he  had  differed  from  him  on  the  bill  by  which  war  was  de- 
clared. He  announced  his  purpose  to  vote  for  Mr.  McKay's  bill  in 


2  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

any  form,  but  suggested  that  it  should  expressly  specify  that  the 
money  was  granted  for  the  purpose  of  negotiating  peace  with  Mexico. 
The  bill  was  modified  in  accordance  with  Mr.  Adams'  suggestion, 
and  seemed  on  the  point  of  passing  through  all  its  stages  without 
serious  opposition. 

The  opposition  to  the  annexation  of  Texas  in  the  previous  adminis- 
tration was  due  in  a  great  measure  to  the  hostility  of  the  Free  States 
to  the  extension  of  the  area  of  slavery.  It  was  certain  that  the  two 
millions  of  dollars  that  were  demanded  by  the  President  would  be 
used  for  the  acquisition  of  territory  not  embraced  in  the  new  State  of 
Texas.  Would  these  acquisitions  become  Free  or  Slave  States? 
Twenty  years  before,  Mexico  had  completely  abolished  slavery, 
and  it  was  a  sound  assumption  that  all  the  laud  that  might  be  ceded 
to  the  United  States  would  come  to  us  as  free  soil.  But  in  view  of 
the  approaching  exigency,  Mr.  Calhoun  had  enunciated  the  dogma 
that  the  Federal  Constitution  carried  slavery  into  every  rood  of  terri- 
tory acquired  by  the  United  States  from  which  it  was  not  excluded 
by  positive  law  of  American  enactment.  This  construction  of  the 
Constitution,  if  assented  to,  would  inevitably  carry  slavery  into  the 
extensive  territory  that  it  was  designed  to  wrest  from  Mexico.  To 
prevent  a  consummation  that  would  thus  add  a  vast  region  to  the  do- 
main of  the  slave  power,  a  hurried  conference  was  held  by  some  of 
the  Democratic  members  of  Congress  from  the  Free  States,  which  was 
participated  in  by  such  active  Democrats  of  that  period  as  Hannibal 
Hamlin,  of  Maine;  George  Rathbun,  Martin  Grover,  and  Preston 
King,  of  New  York;  David  Wilmot,  of  Pennsylvania;  Jacob  Brincker- 
hoff  and  James  J.  Faran,  of  Ohio,  and  Robert  McClelland,  of  Michigan. 
The  result  of  the  conference  was  the  famous  Proviso  proposed  by  the 
young  Congressman  from  Pennsylvania,  David  Wilmot. 

Wilmot  was  in  his  first  session  of  his  term  in  Congress.  He  was 
only  thirty-three  years  old,  and  as  yet  entirely  unknown  outside  of 
the  district  that  had  chosen  him  as  its  representative.  For  twelve 
years  he  had  been  a  practicing  lawyer  at  Towanda,  where  he  had  ac- 
quired a  leading  position  at  the  bar.  He  was  a  young  man  of  power- 
ful frame,  with  a  mind  that  partook  of  the  rugged  strength  of  his 
body.  His  most  noteworthy  qualities  were  his  strong  common  sense 
and  his  tenacious  courage.  He  was  able,  without  any  claims  to  bril- 
liancy, either  as  an  orator  or  statesman.  As  a  speaker  he  was  clear, 
incisive,  and  sensible,  and  convinced  rather  by  his  sincerity  than  his 
eloquence.  His  district  had  always  given  Democratic  majorities,  and 
he  was  himself  an  intense  Democratic  partisan.  It  has  been  claimed 
by  a  modern  writer  of  Republican  antecedents  that  the  Wilmot 
Proviso  as  a  restrictive  measure  was  nugatory,  because  the  only 


GENESIS  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY.  3 

territory  to  be  acquired  was  New  Mexico  and  California,  where 
slavery  was  already  prohibited  by  Mexican  law;  and  that  it  only 
served  to  bring  on  the  slavery  agitation,  that  finally  resulted  in  the 
Civil  War.  This  is  a  very  narrow  view  of  a  declaration  that  cleft  the 
old  parties  asunder,  and  that  became  the  watchword  of  a  new  party 
that  was  destined  to  save  the  Union  by  destroying  slavery.  The  Wil- 
mot  Proviso  made  the  name  of  its  author  familiar  throughout  the 
length  and  breadth  of  the  land,  and  will  cause  him  to  be  remembered 
in  history  as  the  foremost  champion  of  the  principles  that  finally  tri- 
umphed in  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  of  President  Lincoln, 
crowned  by  the  surrender  at  Appomattox. 

The  gist  of  the  Wilmot  Proviso  was  that  neither  slavery  nor  in- 
voluntary servitude,  except  for  crime,  should  ever  exist  in  any  terri- 
tory acquired  by  the  United  States  from  Mexico.  Mr.  Wilmot  moved 
to  add  this  Proviso  to  the  first  section  of  the  bill  making  the  two  mil- 
lion appropriation.  It  was  adopted  in  Committee  of  the  Whole  by  80 
ayes  to  64  noes,  onlv  three  members  from  the  Free  States  votine; 

i/  O 

against  the  proposition.  The  bill  as  amended  wras  then  reported  to 
the  House,  and  Mr.  Rathbun,  of  New  York,  moved  the  previous 
question,  but  was  met  by  Mr.  Tibbatts,  of  Kentucky,  with  a  motion 
that  the  bill  "  do  lie  on  the  table."  It  will  thus  be  seen  that  the 
Southern  Representatives  were  willing  to  defeat  the  bill  in  order  to 
kill  the  Proviso.  This  motion  was  not  agreed  to  by  a  vote  of  93 
noes  to  79  ayes.  Among  the  Representatives  who  voted  with  the 
minority  wrere  Stephen  A.  Douglas  and  John  A.  McClernand,  Demo- 
crats, of  Illinois,  and  Robert  C.  Schenck,  Whig,  of  Ohio.  The  bill 
was  then  passed  wTith  the  Proviso  in  a  Democratic  House  by  85  yeas 
to  80  nays,  and  sent -to  the  Senate  in  the  last  hours  of  the  session. 
A  motion  was  made  to  strike  out  the  Proviso,  whereupon  Senator 
John  Davis,  WThig,  of  Massachusetts,  rose  in  debate,  and  continued 
his  speech  until  the  hour  fixed  for  the  adjournment.  Thus  the  bill 
and  the  Proviso  failed  together.  Among  the  conspicuous  Whigs  in 
the  House  who  voted  for  the  Proviso  were  Washington  Hunt,  of 
New  York;  Joseph  R.  Ingersoll  and  James  Pollock,  of  Pennsylvania; 
Robert  C.  Winthrop,  of  Massachusetts,  and  Truman  Smith,  of  Con- 
necticut. Among  the  Democrats  were  Hannibal  Hamlin,  of  Maine; 
Preston  King,  of  New  York;  John  Wentworth,  of  Illinois;  Allen  G. 
Thurman,  of  Ohio,  and  Robert  McClelland,  of  Michigan.  Only  one 
member  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  Line,  Henry  Grider,  Whig,  of 
Kentucky,  voted  writh  the  majority. 

At  the  next  session  of  Congress  the  desired  appropriation,  in- 
creased from  two  to  three  millions  of  dollars,  was  made  without  the 
obnoxious  Proviso;  but,  notwithstanding  the  cowrardice  of  the  Whigs, 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 


and  the  surrender  of  the  Northern  Democrats  to  the  demands  of  the 
South,  the  principle  involved  in  the  Wilmot  restriction  became  a 
potent  factor  in  the  succeeding  Congresses  and  the  political  con- 
ventions. In  the  30th  Congress,  of  which  Robert  C.  Winthrop,  Whig, 
was  chosen  Speaker  by  a  majority  of  only  one  vote,  a  resolve  em- 
bodying the  substance  of  the  Wilmot  Proviso  was  offered  by  Harvey 
Putnam,  of  New  York,  but  was  laid  on  the  table,  on  motion  of 
Richard  Brodhead,  of  Pennsylvania,  by  105  yeas  to  93  nays.  In  this 
Congress  there  were  two  new  members,  both  of  whom  afterwrards 
became  prominent  in  Republican  politics — Abraham  Lincoln,  of  Il- 
linois, and  Horace  Greeley,  of  New  York.  Neither  of  them  made 
any  distinct  impression  upon  the  country.  It  is  remembered  of  Lin- 
coln, that  when  it  was  alleged  on  the  floor  of  the  House  that  Mexican 

aggression  had  begun  on  American 
soil,  he  met  the  allegation  by  a  reso- 
lution and  a  speech,  in  both  of  which 
he  insisted  on  the  designation  of  the 
spot.  This  word  was  repeated  so 
often  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  resolution  that 
he  was  nicknamed  "  Spot "  Lincoln. 
Greeley  wras  chosen  to  fill  a  vacancy; 
he  served  for  only  three  months,  and 
was  not  renominated.  It  was  during 
the  existence  of  this  Congress  that 
the  war  with  Mexico  was  brought  to 
a  successful  termination,  that  the 
treaty  of  Guadalupe  Hidalgo  was 
concluded  and  ratified,  and  that  fif- 
teen millions  of  dollars  were  voted 
for  the  payment  of  the  ceded  terri- 
tory without  a  restriction  of  any  kind  on  the  subject  of  slavery.  The 
Mexican  Government  was  anxious  to  obtain  a  guaranty  from  the 
United  States  that  slavery  should  not  be  re-established  on  soil  that 
had  once  belonged  to  Mexico,  but  Nicholas  T.  Trist,  the  American 
Commissioner,  answered  haughtily  that  if  the  territory  about  to  be 
ceded  "  were  increased  tenfold  in  value,  and,  in  addition  to  that, 
covered  a  foot  thick  with  pure  gold,  on  the  single  condition  that 
slavery  should  be  forever  excluded,  he  would  not  entertain  the  offer 
for  a  moment,  nor  even  think  of  sending  it  to  the  government.  No 
American  President  would  dare  to  submit  such  treaty  to  the  Senate." 
The  Mexican  war,  from  its  inception  to  its  close,  was  a  crusade  in 
behalf  of  slavery.  The  Democratic  party  had  precipitated  the  war. 
but  gained  no  political  strength  through  its  successful  conclusion. 


ROBERT    C.    WINTHROP. 


GENESIS  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 


With  the  exception  of  General  Zachary  Taylor,  who  conducted  a  vic- 
torious campaign  at  the  beginning  of  the  struggle,  but  was  checked 
and  his  army  crippled  by  orders  from  the  government  at  Washing- 
ton after  the  battle  of  Bueua  Vista,  and  of  General  Winfield  Scott, 
whose  brilliant  campaign  from  Vera  Cruz  to  the  city  of  Mexico 
was  supplemented  by  a  quarrel  with  the  Secretary  of  War  and  orders 
to  turn  over  the  army  to  General  William  O.  Butler,  a  political 
general,  all  the  prominent  military*-  leaders  were  active  Democrats 
in  their  respective  States.  The  Major-Generals  were  William  O.  But- 
ler, John  A.  Quitman,  and  Gideon  J.  Pillow,  and  the  Brigadier-Gen- 
erals were  Joseph  Lane,  James  Shields,  Franklin  Pierce,  George  Cad- 
walader,  Caleb  Cushing,  Enos  D.  Hopping,  and  Sterling  Price.  Not 
one  of  these  had  seen  service  in  the  field,  or  had  any  pretense  to  mili- 
tary fitness.  There  was  not  a  W'hig 
in  the  list,  and  even  the  graduates 
of  the  Military  Academy  at  West 
Point  were  compelled  to  serve  in  un- 
important subordinate  places,  or  to 
seek  service  through  State  appoint- 
ments in  volunteer  regiments.  In- 
deed, the  administration  went  even 
further,  and  sought  to  send  Thomas 
H.  Benton  out  to  Mexico,  with  the 
rank  of  Lieutenant-General,  to  su- 
persede Taylor  and  Scott.  A  bill  to 
enable  this  to  be  done  was  actually 
adopted  in  the  House,  and  was  only 
stopped  in  the  Senate  by  a  con- 
vincing speech  of  Mr.  Badger  of 
North  Carolina.  Colonel  Benton  himself  was  heartily  in  favor  of 
his  appointment  to  the  supreme  command,  and,  notwithstanding 
his  recognized  unfitness  for  the  position,  he  seriously  believed  to 
the  end  of  his  life  that  a  mistake  had  been  made  in  the  failure 
of  the  Senate  to  gratify  his  ambition.  He  declared  in  the  auto- 
biography prefixed  to  his  "  Thirty  Years'  View  "  that  his  appoint- 
ment as  Lieutenant-General  over  Scott  and  Taylor  "  could  not  have 
wounded  professional  honor,"  as  at  the  time  of  his  retirement  from 
the  army  after  the  war  of  1812,  he  ranked  all  those  who  had  since 
reached  its  head.  The  effort  at  making  a  Democratic  hero  out  of  the 
war  was  a  failure,  and  not  only  was  President  Polk  disposed  of  as  an 
available  candidate  for  re-election,  but  Taylor's  popularity  gave  him 
a  strength  so  irresistible  that  it  brought  him  the  Whig  nomination 
for  the  Presidency  in  1848,  to  the  chagrin  and  mortification  of  Mr. 


THOMAS    H.    BENTON. 


6  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

Clay,  and  the  fierce  indignation  of  Mr.  Webster,  who  resented  the 
selection  as  a  nomination  rt  unfit  to  be  made."  Taylor  was  placed  be- 
fore the  people  simply  on  his  record  as  a  soldier,  unhampered  by  poli- 
tical declarations,  and  after  a  "  Stars  and  Stripes  "  canvass,  he  was 
elected  by  a  plurality  over  Cass  and  Van  Buren  that  was  almost  a 
popular  majority,  as  well  as  by  an  overwhelming  majority  in  the 
Electoral  College. 

Although  the  Whigs  at  the  outset  had  accepted  the  doctrine  of 
the  Wilmot  Proviso  with  avidity,  it  was  not  long  until  the  Whig- 
managers  foresaw  that  if  it  was  persisted  in  it  would  give  almost  the 
entire  South  to  the  Democrats.  On  the  other  hand,  a  pro-slavery 
policy  would  rend  the  Whig  party  throughout  the  North.  In  conse- 
quence a  non-committal  plan  was  adopted  as  the  only  safe  one.  Ac- 
cordingly, no  resolutions  formulating  distinct  principles  wrere  adopt- 
ed by  the  Whig  convention  at  Philadelphia  that  nominated  General 
Taylor  for  the  Presidency,  and  repeated  efforts  to  interpose  a  resolu- 
tion affirming  the  principles  of  the  Wilmot  Proviso  were  met  by  suc- 
cessful motions  to  lay  on  the  table.  This  pacified  the  majority  of  the 
Whig  party  at  the  time  as  an  unavoidable  expedient,  but  there  were 
many  "  Conscience  Whigs  "  in  New  York,  New  England,  and  Ohio, 
who  had  pronounced  views  on  the  subject  of  slavery,  and  refused  to 
support  the  candidate.  In  Massachusetts  the  revolt  was  led  by  Henry 
Wilson,  E.  Kockwood  Hoar,  and  Charles  Francis  Adams.  In  New 
York  a  defection  was  avoided  only  through  the  activity  of  Mr.  Seward. 
In  Ohio  the  discontent  was  almost  as  pronounced  as  in  Massachusetts. 
This  defection  in  the  Whig  party  only  failed  to  be  disastrous  because 
of  the  revolt  of  the  Free  Soil  element  in  the  Democratic  party  under 
the  leadership  of  Van  Buren.  For  a  number  of  years  the  Democrats 
of  New  York  had  been  divided  into  two  factions,  which  bore  respect- 
ively the  name  of  Hunkers  and  Barnburners.  The  Hunkers,  under 
the  leadership  of  Mr.  Marcy,  President  Polk's  Secretary  of  War,  were 
pro-slavery  Democrats.  The  Barnburners,  with  Silas  Wright  as  their 
leader,  were  Free  Soilers.  Each  faction  sent  a  delegation  to  the 
Democratic  National  Convention  at  Baltimore.  The  Convention  ad- 
mitted both  delegations,  but  the  Barnburners  declined  to  compromise 
a  principle,  and  retired.  Returning  to  New  York,  a  great  meeting  was 
held  in  the  City  Hall  Park,  at  which  the  cowardice  of  Northern  Sena- 
tors, W'ho  had  voted  with  the  South,  was  vigorously  denounced  and 
strenuously  condemned.  The  delegates  issued  an  address,  written  by 
Samuel  J.  Tilden,  calling  Democrats  to  independent  action,  and  a 
convention  was  called  to  meet  at  Utica  on  the  22d  of  June,  at  which 
Van  Buren  was  nominated  as  the  Free  Soil  candidate.  He  accepted 
the  nomination,  but  wras  distrusted  by  the  "  Conscience  Whigs,"  who 


GENESIS  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY.  7 

pretended  to  doubt  his  sincerity;  and  many  of  them  refused  to  support 
him,  although  his  nomination  was  supplemented  by  that  of  a  later 
convention  of  the  Free  Soil  element,  held  at  Buffalo  on  the  9th  of 
August.  The  declaration  of  principles  by  the  Buffalo  Convention 
was,  after  the  Wilmot  Proviso,  the  most  explicit  fulmination  against 
slavery  extension  that  had  been  made  up  to  that  time.  It  may  be 
justly  regarded  as  the  second  foundation  stone  of  the  Republican 
party.  Among  those  who  participated  in  this  convention  were  Joshua 
R.  Giddings,  the  famous  Abolitionist;  Salmon  P.  Chase,  and  Charles 
Francis  Adams.  The  real  objects  of  the  Barnburners  were  to  be  re- 
venged upon  Cass,  the  Democratic  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  and 
to  wrest  the  political  control  of  New  York  from  the  Hunkers.  This 
accomplished,  many  of  them  were  willing  to  forget  their  anti-slavery 
professions,  and  reunite  with  the  old  party  in  its  pro-slavery  crusade. 
Among  these  were  C.  C.  Cambreling,  Dean  Richmond,  John  Van 
Buren,  Sanford  E.  Church,  and  Samuel  J.  Tilden.  Among  those  who 
were  sincere,  and  adhered  in  later  years  to  the  principles  the/  pro- 
fessed, the  most  prominent  were  Preston  King  and  James  W.  Wads- 
worth. 

The  election  of  General  Taylor  and  the  discovery  of  gold  in  Cali- 
fornia were  almost  simultaneous.  It  must  be  confessed  that  the  latter 
event  had  greater  effect  upon  the  slavery  agitation  than  the  former. 
The  pro-slavery  leaders  had  counted  upon  a  large  increase  in  slave 
territory  by  the  acquisitions  from  Mexico.  It  was  their  intention  to 
consecrate  to  slavery  by  positive  legislation  the  vast  domain  between 
Texas  and  the  Pacific  Ocean.  This  was  prevented  by  the  unexpected 
emigration  to  California  after  this  important  discovery.  In  less  than 
a  year  the  Pacific  slope  was  filled  with  a  hearty,  resolute  population, 
and  California  asked  for  admittance  into  the  Union  as  a  State,  with 
slavery  forever  prohibited  in  the  newly  organized  Commonwealth. 
Contrary  to  the  expectation  of  the  South  and  the  Southern  leaders, 
President  Taylor,  in  a  special  message  to  Congress  early  in  1850.  rec- 
ommended that  the  new  State,  with  its  anti-slavery  constitution, 
should  be  promptly  admitted.  Congress  was  not  disposed  to  regard 
any  plan  of  the  administration  with  favor,  while  the  slave  power  was 
determined  to  obtain  a  part  of  the  newly  acquired  territory.  Repeat- 
ed efforts  were  made  to  cut  off  from  California  the  territory  south  of 
36  degrees  30  minutes,  but  finally  the  opposition  was  overcome,  and 
the  entire  area  was  admitted  as  a  Free  State.  The  bill  organizing 
New  Mexico  as  a  territory  was  passed  two  days  later.  The  questions 
for  adjustment  that  engaged  the  attention  of  the  31st  Congress  in- 
cluded the  Texas  boundary,  and  the  payment  to  that  State  of  ten 
millions  of  dollars  indemnity  for  the  loss  of  territory  to  which  it  laid 


8 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 


claim ;  but  a  measure  that  gave  greater  offense  at  the  North  than  even 
the  extension  of  slave  territory  was  the  obnoxious  Fugitive  Slave 
Law,  which  was  made  a  part  of  the  Compromise  of  1850.  If  President 
Taylor  had  lived,  it  is  believed  the  offensive  measures,  to  which  Mr. 
Clay  gave  the  last  services  of  his  distinguished  career,  would  have 
been  defeated,  whereas  the  accession  of  Vice-President  Fillmore,  upon 
the  death  of  the  President,  opened  the  way  for  the  success  of  the  plan 
of  Compromise.  It  had  been  known  long  before  President  Taylor's 
death  that  Mr.  Fillmore  was  not  in  sympathy  with  the  policy  of  the 
administration.  This  was  all  the  more  surprising  because  Fillmore 
was  among  the  most  pronounced  of  anti-slavery  Whigs  during  his  ser- 
vice in  Congress,  and  had  been  placed  on  the  ticket  with  General 
Taylor  in  1848,  because  it  was  believed  that  his  nomination  would 

hold  to  their  allegiance  a  large  class 
of  Whigs  who  resented  the  candida- 
ture of  a  Louisiana  slaveholder.  In 
these  expectations  the  Whigs  were 
disappointed,  the  "Conscience 
Whigs "  most  of  all.  Mr.  Fillmore 
gave  the  full  influence  of  his  adminis- 
tration to  the  Compromise  of  1850, 
and  signed  in  detail  the  measures  that 
were  considered  as  a  final  and  com- 
plete adjustment  of  the  slavery  ques- 
tion. This  finality  proved  to  be  illu- 
sory, but  it  marked  the  close  of  a  stir- 
ring epoch  in  American  history,  that 
was  to  be  followed  by  another  even 
more  stirring,  not  to  say  revolution- 
ary. With  the  close  of  this  epoch 

most  of  the  men  that  had  made  it  memorable  passed  off  the  stage. 
Calhoun  had  died  early  in  the  year.  Clay  and  Webster  had  finished 
their  life  wrork,  and  soon  were  laid  to  rest — the  one  at  Ashland  in 
Kentucky,  and  the  other  at  Marshfield,  in  Massachusetts.  Benton, 
too,  had  finished  his  career  of  thirty  years  in  the  Senate — from  the 
Compromise  of  1820  to  the  Compromise  of  1850.  New  men  were  to 
take  their  places  in  guiding  the  policy  of  the  Republic,  among  whom 
William  H.  Seward,  an  anti-slavery  Whig;  Salmon  P.  Chase,  a  Free 
Soiler  of  Democratic  affiliations;  Jefferson  Davis,  an  ultra  Southern 
Democrat;  and  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  a  Northern  Democrat,  less  ultra 
but  not  less  dangerous,  were  the  most  prominent  in  the  Senate — with 
Thaddeus  Stevens  and  William  Pitt  Fessenden  as  the  most  earnest, 
active,  and  uncompromising  opponents  of  slavery  in  the  House.  These 


MILLARD    FILLMORE. 


GENESIS  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY.  9 

were  the  giants  of  the  new  era — the  gladiators  who  contested  in  the 
arena  of  American  politics  during  the  next  decade. 

The  two  National  Conventions  of  1852,  both  of  which  assembled  at 
Baltimore,  declared  their  adhesion  to  the  Compromise  of  1850,  includ- 
ing the  Fugitive  Slave  law,  which  was  especially  named  in  both  plat- 
forms. The  Convention  that  nominated  General  Pierce  for  the  Presi- 
dency declared  that  "  the  Democratic  party  will  resist  all  attempts  at 
renewing  in  Congress  and  out  of  it  the  agitation  of  the  slavery  ques- 
tion, under  whatever  shape  or  color  the  attempt  may  be  made." 

Notwithstanding  that  the  Democrats  were  reunited,  enthusiastic, 
and  aggressive,  with  the  Northern  Democracy  fully  accepting  the 
Compromises  as  a  finality,  the  Whigs  entered  upon  the  Presidential 
canvass  of  1852  with  strong  hopes  of  success.  But  it  was  not  long  until 
it  became  apparent  that  the  party  was  hopelessly  divided  on  ques- 
tions of  principle.  The  Northern  Democrats  with  Southern  principles 
were  willing  enough  to  support  their  candidate;  but  a  Northern  can- 
didate on  a  Southern  platform  proved  unsatisfactory  both  to  the 
Whigs  of  the  North  and  of  the  South.  The  result  was  that  the  Whig 
defeat  was  overwhelming.  General  Scott,  the  Whig  candidate,  car- 
ried only  four  States — Vermont  and  Massachusetts  in  the  North,  and 
Kentucky  and  Tennessee  in  the  South,  receiving  only  42  electoral 
votes  to  254  for  General  Pierce.  Notwithstanding  his  overwhelming 
electoral  strength  Pierce's  absolute  majority  of  the  popular  vote  was 
only  58,896.  He  received  a  total  of  1,651,274  votes  to  1,386,580  for 
Scott,  and  155,825  for  John  P.  Hale,  the  Free  Soil  candidate.  These 
figures  ought  to  have  shown  that  the  result  was  by  no  means  con- 
clusive, but  the  Democrats  looked  forward  to  a  long  lease  of  power. 
The  slavery  question  was  settled.  Both  parties  were  pledged  to  the 
finality  of  the  settlement.  The  Free  Soil  vote  in  none  of  the  States 
was  great  enough  to  be  alarming.  The  country  was  prosperous.  Both 
sections  wrere  apparently  satisfied  with  the  settlement  of  the  slavery 
question,  and  the  new  administration  opened  auspiciously.  When 
Congress  met  in  December,  1853,  President  Pierce,  in  his  first  annual 
message,  declared  that  the  Compromise  legislation  of  1850  had  given 
renewed  vigor  to  our  institutions,  and  restored  a  sense  of  repose  and 
security  to  the  public  mind.  This  "  repose  "  he  said  should  suffer  no 
shock  during  his  term,  if  he  had  power  to  avert  it.  A  little  more  than 
one  month  later,  in  January,  1854,  the  repose  upon  which  the  Presi- 
dent had  felicitated  himself  and  the  country  was  seriously  disturbed 
by  an  intimation  in  the  Senate  from  Archibald  Dixon,  of  Kentucky, 
who  had  been  chosen  to  succeed  Mr.  Clay,  that  when  the  bill  to  organ- 
ize the  Territory  of  Nebraska  should  come  before  that  body  he  would 
move  that  "  the  Missouri  Compromise  be  repealed,  and  that  the  citi- 


10 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 


zens  of  the  several  States  shall  be  at  liberty  to  take  and  hold  their 
slaves  within  any  of  the  Territories." 

At  the  first  session  of  the  32d  Congress  petitions  \vere  presented  for 
the  organization  of  the  region  westward  of  Missouri  and  Iowa,  but  it 
was  not  until  the  next  session  that  a  bill  was  introduced  into  the 
House  for  organizing  the  Territory  of  Platte.  This  bill  Avas  subse- 
quently reported  from  the  Committee  on  Territories  as  a  bill  organiz- 
ing the  Territory  of  Nebraska.  This  measure  encountered  unexpected 
opposition  from  the  Southern  members  in  Committee  of  the  Whole, 
and  was  reported  to  the  House  with  the  recommendation  that  it  be 
rejected.  An  attempt  to  lay  it  on  the  table  Avas  defeated,  and  it 
passed  by  98  yeas  to  43  nays,  and  wras  sent  to  the  Senate,  where  it 
failed.  All  the  Senators  from  slave  Steites  voted  against  the  bill,  ex- 
cept those  from  Missouri,  who,  for  local 
reasons,  were  anxious  that  the  UCAV  ter- 
ritory should  be  organized.  As  early  as 
December  14,  1853,  Augustus  C.  Dodge,  of 
Iowa,  submitted  to  the  Senate  a  bill  for 
organizing  the  Territory  of  Nebraska,  em- 
bracing, as  before,  the  region  lying  Avest- 
ward  of  Missouri  and  loAva.  It  was  re- 
ferred to  the  Senate  Committee  on  Terri- 
tories. It  Avas  then  that  Senator  Dixon 
gave  notice  that  he  should  offer  an  amend- 
ment virtually  repealing  the  Compromise 
of  1820.  When  the  measure  was  reported 
from  the  committee  Mr.  Dixon  offered  his 
amendment  as  the  t\venty-second  section 
of  the  bill.  The  Democratic  organ  at 
Washington,  the  Union,  denounced  the 

proposition  as  a  Whig  device  to  divide  and  disorganize  the  Demo- 
cratic party.  "  I  have  been  charged  through  one  of  the  leading 
journals  of  this  city,"  said  Senator  Dixon  afterAvard,  in  his  place 
in  the  Senate,  "  with  haA'ing  proposed  the  amendment  Avhich  I  noti- 
fied the  Senate  I  intended  to  offer,  with  a  view  to  embarrass  the 
Democratic  party.  It  was  said  that  I  was  a  Whig  from  Kentucky, 
and  that  the  amendment  proposed  by  me  should  be  looked  upon  with 
suspicion  by  the  opposite  party.  Sir,  I  merely  wish  to  remark  that 
upon  the  question  of  slavery,  I  know  no  Whiggery,  and  I  know  no 
Democracy.  I  am  a  pro-slavery  man.  I  am  from  a  slave-holding 
State.  I  represent  a  slaAre-holding  constituency.  I  am  here  to  main- 
tain the  rights  of  that  people  whenever  they  are  before  the  Senate." 
Although  General  Cass  had  been  the  first  to  enunciate  the  doctrine 


ARCHIBALD     DIXON. 


GENESIS  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN"  PARTY.  11 

of  Popular  Sovereignty,  generally  called  "  Squatter  Sovereignty,"  as 
early  as  1847,  Senator  Douglas,  of  Illinois,  was  the  first  to  render  it 
potential  as  a  principle  of  legislative  action.  It  must  be  conceded, 
however,  that  the  Compromise  of  1820  was  inconsistent  with  slavery 
in  the  Territories.  It  became  necessary,  therefore,  that  Mr.  Douglas 
should  go  a  step  further  than  he  originally  contemplated,  and  ac- 
cordingly, on  the  23d  of  January,  1854,  he  reported  a  new  measure 
from  his  committee,  to  which  the  Nebraska  bill  had  been  recom- 
mitted. The  bill  was  different  from  its  predecessor,  except  that  it 
contemplated  the  same  region.  Instead  of  organizing  the  single  Ter- 
ritory of  Nebraska,  the  new  measure  proposed  to  organize  the  Terri- 
tories of  Kansas  and  Nebraska.  One  of  the  sections  of  this  bill  de- 
clared the  Missouri  Compromise  of  1820  inoperative  and  void,  be- 
cause "  inconsistent  with  the  principle  of  non-intervention  by  Con- 
gress with  slavery  in  the  States  and  Territories,  as  recognized  by  the 
Compromise  measures  of  1850,"  and  it  was  further  declared  that  "  its 
true  intent  and  meaning  was  not  to  legislate  slavery  into  any  Terri- 
tory or  State  and  not  to  exclude  it  therefrom,  but  to  leave  the  people 
perfectly  free  to  regulate  their  domestic  institutions  in  their  own 
way."  The  bill  wras  finally  forced  through  Congress,  after  a  prolonged 
and  bitter  contest  of  four  months,  by  a  vote  of  113  yeas  to  100  nays  in 
the  House.  The  Free  States  contributed  44  votes  in  support  of  the 
measure,  all  cast  by  Democrats.  Against  it  were  94  members  from 
the  Free  States,  of  whom  44  were  chosen  as  Whigs,  3  as  Free  Soilers, 
and  44  as  Democrats.  From  the  slave  States,  12  Whigs  and  57  Demo- 
crats sustained  it.  The  Kansas-Nebraska  bill,  containing  the  repeal 
of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  was  signed  by  President  Pierce,  May 
30,  1854,  and  became  the  law  of  the  land. 

The  triumph  of  the  Slave  Power  was  complete,  far-reaching,  and 
apparently  perpetual.  Kansas  and  Nebraska,  with  all  the  territory 
south  and  west  of  them,  were  to  become  Slave  States.  When  the 
Kansas-Nebraska  bill  became  a  law  there  was  no  hope  of  rescuing  any 
part  of  this  great  domain  from  the  domination  of  slavery.  In  Con- 
gress the  South  was  supreme,  and  it  was  intended  to  make  it  supreme 
for  all  time.  It  was  the  purpose  to  carve  the  great  State  of  Texas 
into  five  States  instead  of  one,  thus  giving  the  South  ten  senators  in- 
stead of  two.  Cuba  and  Central  America  were  to  be  acquired  for  the 
aggrandizement  and  perpetuity  of  slavery.  Even  the  Free  States 
could  not  feel  assured  that  they  would  be  secure  from  the  aggressions 
of  the  Slave  Power  for  many  years.  The  threat  of  Robert  Toombs  of 
Georgia  that  he  would  call  the  roll  of  his  slaves  on  Bunker  Hill  might 
indeed  become  true — it  was  at  least  a  possibility. 

There  were  able  champions  of  freedom  in  the  33d  Congress — Sew- 


12 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 


ard,  Simmer,  Chase,  Hale,  Wilson,  Giddings,  and  others.  Against 
the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  of  1820  were  two  Southern 
Democrats  of  the  old  school — General  Sam  Houston,  of  Texas,  in  the 
Senate,  and  Thomas  H.  Benton,  of  Missouri,  in  the  House.  Houston 
had  had  a  career  as  romantic  as  that  of  a  Knight  of  the  Round  Table. 
A  native  of  Virginia,  he  was  a  Representative  in  Congress  from  Ten- 
nessee, and  Governor  of  that  State,  before  he  was  35,  but  resigned 
his  Governorship  because  of  domestic  trouble,  and  fled  from  civilized 
life.  For  years  he  roved  with  the  Indians,  adopted  their  habits,  and 
became  the  chief  of  a  tribe.  Finally  emigrating  to  Texas,  he  led  the 
revolt  against  Mexico,  and  after  fighting  its  battles,  organized  a  new 
republic  of  which  he  was  made  President;  by  these  means  he  gave  to 
his  native  land  the  great  domain  that  he  had  wTrested  from  Mexico. 

Once  more  in  the  Union  and  a  Sena- 
tor of  the  United  States,  he  warned 
the  South  against  the  madness  of  re- 
pealing the  Missouri  Compromise,  and 
of  Southern  Democrats  in  the  Senate 
he  alone  voted  against  the  dangerous 
measure.  In  the  House,  after  thirty- 
three  years'  service  in  the  Senate,  was 
the  venerable  Colonel  Benton.  He 
belonged  to  the  class  of  Southern 
Democrats  for  whom  the  South  had 
no  longer  any  use — the  Democracy  of 
Andrew  Jackson,  not  that  of  John  C. 
Calhoun.  But  his  day  was  past,  his 
power  broken,  his  influence  gone.  In 
his  own  State  he  had  been  beaten,  and 
David  R.  Atchison  sat  in  his  seat  in 

the  Senate.  In  the  House,  to  which  lie  was  sent  by  the  city  of  St.  Louis 
in  the  autumn  of  1852,  he  was  unsparing  in  his  denunciation  of  the 
measure  fathered  by  Douglas,  declaring  that  the  original  Compromise 
had  been  forced  upon  the  North  by  the  South,  and  that  this  repeal 
had  been  initiated  "  without  a  memorial,  without  a  petition,  without 
a  request  from  any  human  being.  It  was  simply  and  only  a  contriv- 
ance of  political  leaders,  who  were  using  the  institution  of  slavery  as 
a  weapon,  and  rushing  the  country  forward  to  excitements  and  to 
conflicts  in  which  there  was  no  profit  to  either  section,  and  possibly 
great  harm  to  both." 

The  immediate  result  of  the  repeal  of  the  Compromise  was  the  dis- 
solution of  the  Whig  party.  There  were  still  a  few  Whigs  in  the 
South  who  refused  to  unite  with  the  Democrats,  but  with  the  excep- 


SAM    HOUSTON. 


GENESIS  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 


13 


tion  of  John  Bell  in  the  Senate  and  seven  members  of  the  House,  all 
the  Whigs  in  Congress  joined  in  repealing  the  Compromise.  Still  the 
Southern  Whigs  did  not  despair  altogether,  and  with  such  leaders  as 
Humphrey  Marshall,  Henry  Winter  Davis,  and  Horace  Maynard,  they 
attempted  a  reorganization  under  the  name  of  the  American  party. 
Its  creed  was  proscription  of  foreigners  and  hostility  to  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church.  Its  members  met  in  secret  lodges,  and  the  party 
was  nicknamed  the  "  Know-Nothing  Party."  The  area  of  Know- 
Nothingism  extended  as  far  as  Texas,  but  the  Order  met  with  little 
success  in  the  West.  In  some  of  the  Northern  States  a  large  propor- 
tion of  the  Whigs  joined  it  in  the  hope  of  diverting  the  political  issues 
over  slavery  to  Native  Americanism,  and  the  new  party  achieved  ex- 
traordinary successes  in  the  State 
elections  of  1854.  Its  successes,  how- 
ever, were  feverish  and  fitful,  and 
the  Order  was  destined  to  run  its 
career,  and  vanish  as  suddenly  as  it 
appeared.  The  great  body  of  anti- 
slavery  Whigs  and  anti-slavery  Dem- 
ocrats in  the  North,  who  wrere  not 
Abolitionists,  but  who  were  sincere- 
ly and  earnestly  opposed  to  the  ex- 
tension of  slavery,  saw  that  the  real 
contest  was  with  the  Slave  Power, 
and  not  against  naturalization  laws 
and  ecclesiastical  dogmas.  Before 
the  close  of  the  year  1854,  the  anti- 
slavery  sentiment  of  the  Free  States 
was  in  a  ferment  against  the  Pro- 
Slavery  Democracy.  The  result  was 

the  birth  of  the  Republican  party.  Old  political  landmarks  had  dis- 
appeared, and  with  them  the  political  prejudices  of  three  generations. 
At  first  the  new  party  was  without  cohesion,  without  compact  or- 
ganization, and  almost  without  a  name.  The  people,  however,  were 
determined  to  obtain  a  plurality  in  the  House  of  Representatives, 
and  such  was  their  success  at  the  outset  that  after  a  prolonged  con- 
test in  the  34th  Congress,  Nathaniel  P.  Banks,  of  Massachusetts,  was 
elected  Speaker  of  the  House  over  William  Aiken,  of  South  Carolina. 
Every  vote  from  the  Slave  States  was  given  to  Mr.  Aiken,  Banks  being 
chosen  wholly  by  votes  from  the  Free  States.  The  contest  lasted  from 
the  3d  of  December,  1855,  until  the  2d  of  February,  1856,  none  of  the 
candidates  being  able  to  obtain  a  majority.  Through  121  ballotings 
the  Democratic  candidate  was  William  A.  Richardson,  of  Illinois,  the 


GEN.    NATHANIEL    P.    BANKS. 


14  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

House  leader  on  the  Nebraska  bill  in  the  previous  Congress.  Rich- 
ardson withdrew  from  the  contest  on  the  23d  of  January,  but  the 
Democrats  and  Know-Nothings  found  themselves  unable  to  concen- 
trate on  any  other  candidate  with  a  better  prospect  of  success.  Banks, 
the  anti-Nebraska  favorite,  was  in  his  second  term  in  the  House,  and 
had  already  won  distinction  as  a  parliamentarian.  He  had  been  a 
member  of  both  branches  of  the  Massachusetts  Legislature,  serving 
for  a  while  as  Speaker,  and  \vas  President  of  the  Convention  to  revise 
the  Constitution  of  the  State  in  1853.  He  was  still  a  young  man,  vig- 
orous, alert,  bold,  and  outspoken  as  a  Republican,  and  withal  mod- 
erate and  conservative  in  word  and  act.  He  could  do  little  in  his  own 
behalf  except  to  await  the  result.  During  the  long  contest  over  the 
Speaker-ship,  Col.  John  W.  Forney,  the  Clerk  of  the  33d  Congress, 
presided  with  distinguished  ability  and  impartiality.  As  it  was  ap- 
parent that  it  was  possible  only  to  elect  a  Speaker  under  the  plurality 
rule,  the  House  finally  agreed  to  adopt  it,  and  Banks  was  elected  by 
103  votes  to  100  for  Mr.  Aiken,  with  30  scattering.  Colonel  Forney,  the 
Clerk,  declared  the  Speaker  elected  without  reference  to  the  House, 
when  a  scene  of  the  wildest  confusion  ensued.  But  for  this  action  the 
election  of  Banks  might  have  been  nullified  even  after  it  was  made; 
for  a  Republican  Speaker,  elected  wholly  by  votes  from  the  Free 
States,  was  a  bitter  disappointment  to  the  Representatives  from  the 
Slave  States,  who  had  voted  solidly  against  him.  Never  before  had  a 
Speaker  been  chosen  without  support  from  both  sections,  and  the 
result  was  ominous  of  the  strife  of  the  next  ten  years,  in  which  a 
united  North,  gradually  at  first,  arrayed  itself  against  a  united 
South,  but  wras  compelled  to  accept  the  arbitrament  of  the  sword  as 
the  price  of  success  in  the  Presidential  elections  of  1860.  Between 
the  election  of  the  first  Republican  House  of  Representatives  and  the 
election  of  Banks  as  Speaker  a  new  method  of  dealing  with  slavery 
expansion  had  been  adopted  that  gave  stability  to  the  new  party. 
It  often  happens  that  the  triumph  of  wrong  proves  its  undoing  and 
it  was  almost  inevitable  that  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise 
and  the  passage  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  act  should  be  the  beginning 
of  the  end  of  slavery.  This,  however,  was  not  the  accepted  view  at 
the  time.  The  anti-slavery  agitators  who  had  been  shouting,  "  No 
union  with  slave-holders,"  and  crying 

Tear  dowrn  the  flaunting  Lie! 

Half-mast  the  starry  flag! 
Insult  no  sunny  sky 

With  Hate's  polluted  rag! 

were  helpless  and  in  despair.    "  The  moment  you  throw  the  struggle 


GENESIS  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 


15 


with  slavery  into  the  half-barbarous  West,  where  things  are  decided 
by  the  revolver  and  bowie-knife,  slavery  triumphs,"  said  Wendell 
Philips.  "  Will  Kansas  be  a  free  State?"  asked  William  Lloyd  Gar- 
rison, and  he  answered,  "  not  while  the  existing  union  stands.  Its 
fate  is  settled.  .  .  .  Eastern  emigration  will  avail  nothing  to 
keep  slavery  out  of  Kansas."  "  No  wonder  that  we  were  hopeless  and 
helpless,"  said  Eli  Thayer,  in  his  "  Kansas  Crusade."  "  We  had  no 
political  organization  of  any  strength  to  oppose  slavery.  .  .  . 
During  all  this  period  of  the  successful  aggressive  and  increasing 
strength  of  slavery,  there  was  in  the  North  corresponding  apprehen- 
sion and  alarm.  On  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  the  appre- 
hension became  despondency,  and  the  alarm  became  despair.  .  .  . 
The  speeches  in  Congress  and  the  editorials  of  influential  journalists 
prove  that  there  was  no  hope  of  rescuing 
Kansas  from  the  grasp  of  this  resistless 
power,  should  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill 
become  a  law."  It  was  true  that  no  polit- 
ical party,  or  parties,  could  avail  to  save 
Kansas.  Slavery  had  every  advantage.  A 
slave  State,  with  a  population  sufficient 
in  numbers  and  daring  to  settle  both  Ter- 
ritories, bordered  on  the  east,  and  stood 
ready  in  defiance — ready  to  punish  with 
death  any  anti-slavery  man  who  attempt- 
ed to  settle  in  the  new  Territory.  When 
all  others  were  despairing  there  was  one 
man  had  the  foresight  to  perceive  that  all 
was  not  lost — who  had  the  courage  to 
predict  that  Kansas  would  still  be  saved 
for  freedom,  and  the  ability  and  energy  to 
find  the  way. 

This  man  was  Eli  Thayer.  He  was  a  New  England  man,  a  graduate 
of  Brown  University,  a  member  of  Congress  from  Massachusetts,  an 
impassioned  and  forcible  speaker,  and  possessed  of  great  organizing 
ability  and  unflinching  courage.  He  is  almost  ignored  by  the  his- 
torians of  the  epoch — notably  so  in  Greeley's  "  American  Conflict " 
and  Blaine's  "  Twenty  Years  of  Congress  " •—  but  throughout  the  Kan- 
sas struggle  his  name  was  on  every  tongue.  Within  a  month  after  the 
passage  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill  Mr.  Thayer  had  organized  the 
Massachusetts  Emigrant  Aid  Society,  designed  to  make  Kansas  a 
Free  State  by  actual  settlement,  and  a  determination  to  meet  the 
Missouri  desperadoes  who  were  flocking  over  the  border,  armed  with 
bowie-knives  and  revolvers,  with  Sharpe's  rifles,  and  the  ballot.  At 


ELI    THAYER. 


lo 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 


the  very  outset  he  succeeded  in  obtaining  substantial  financial  back- 
ing for  his  plan.  Amos  A.  Lawrence,  the  millionaire  Boston  mer- 
chant, devoted  a  share  of  his  great  wealth  and  all  of  his  greater  in- 
fluence to  the  cause.  Charles  Francis  Adams  subscribed  $25,000,  and 
J.  S.  M.  Williams  $10,000.  William  M.  Evarts  gave  $1,000,  one-fourth 
of  what  he  was  worth  at  the  time.  Mr.  Thayer's  contributions  in- 
cluded his  untiring  energy  and  ceaseless  efforts.  In  preaching  his  cru- 
sade and  inciting  the  people  of  the  North  to  action  he  traveled  sixty 
thousand  miles,  and  made  hundreds  of  speeches.  But  at  first  the  pro- 
ject met  with  little  encouragement  beyond  the  sphere  of  its  pro- 
jector's personal  influence.  Most  of  the  newspapers  that  were  after- 
ward Republican  refrained  from  giving  it  their  indorsement.  Some  of 
them,  indeed,  denounced  the  scheme  as  madness  and  Thayer  as  a 

madman.  The  Abolitionist  agitators 
were  scarcely  less  bitter  in  assailing 
the  Emigrant  Aid  Society  than  the 
Pro-Slavery  propagandists.  Charles 
Stearns,  the  only  full-fledged  Garri- 
sonian  to  be  found  in  Kansas  early 
in  the  conflict,  denounced  the  society 
as  "  a  hindrance  to  the  cause  of  free- 
dom and  a  curse  to  the  Territory." 
He  thought  it  an  enormity  that  it 
purposed  to  oppose  brute  force  to  the 
Missourians,  and  arraigned  Charles 
Robinson,  Thayer's  lieutenant,  for 
saying,  "  If  they  fire,  do  you  make 
them  bite  the  dust,  and  I  will  find 
coffins."  "  It  is,  indeed,  a  noble  enter- 
prise," said  the  Rev.  Thomas  Went- 

worth  Higginson,  afterward  Colonel  Higginson,  "  and  I  am  proud 
that  it  owes  its  origin  to  a  Worcester  man ;  but  where  is  the  good  of 
emigrating  to  Nebraska,  if  Nebraska  is  only  a  transplanted  Massa- 
chusetts, and  Massachusetts  has  been  tried  and  found  wanting?" 
"  What  do  I  care  for  a  squabble  around  the  ballot  box  in  Kansas?  " 
asked  Wendell  Phillips.  If  these  men  had  had  their  way  Kansas  and 
Nebraska  would  have  been  slave  States,  and  there  would  have  been 
no  Republican  party. 

As  the  first  step  toward  organizing  the  new  territory  of  Kansas, 
President  Pierce  appointed  Andrew  H.  Reeder,  of  Pennsylvania,  Gov- 
ernor, and  Daniel  Woodson,  of  Arkansas,  Secretary  of  the  Territory, 
with  the  necessary  judicial  officers,  a  majority  of  whom  was  from 
Slave  States.  The  appointment  of  Governor  Reeder  was  received 


ANDREW    H.    REEDER. 


GENESIS  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY.  17 

with  suspicion  at  the  South,  and  the  Washington  Union,  President 
Pierce's  immediate  organ,  declared  that  he  was  appointed  under  the 
strongest  assurance  that  he  was  strictly  and  honestly  a  national  man. 
Indeed,  the  Union  asserted  that  while  in  Washington,  at  the  time  of 
his  appointment,  he  conversed  with  Southern  gentlemen  on  the  sub- 
ject of  slavery,  and  assured  them  that  he  had  no  more  scruples  in 
buying  a  slave  than  a  horse,  and  regretted  that  he  had  not  money 
enough  to  purchase  one  to  carry  with  him  to  Kansas.  This  was  prob- 
ably Governor  Reeder's  attitude  at  the  time,  but  it  is  not  likely  that 
he  was  then  aware  of  the  open  and  flagrant  frauds  that  the  people  of 
Missouri  intended  to  commit  in  Kansas.  The  Territorial  government 
was  organized  in  the  autumn  of  1854,  and  in  November  an  election  for 
delegate  in  Congress  was  held.  John  W.  Whitfield,  an  Indian  agent, 
the  Missouri  candidate,  was  returned  as  elected.  He  received  2,871 
votes,  of  which  1,729  were  cast  by  residents  of  Missouri.  Early  in 
1855  Governor  Reeder  ordered  an  election  for  the  first  Territorial 
Legislature,  to  be  held  on  the  30th  of  March.  All  border  Missouri 
was  on  hand  for  this  election.  There  was  no  disguise,  no  regard  for 
decency,  no  pretense  of  legality.  The  Missourians  came  in  wagons 
and  on  horseback,  and  were  armed  with  revolvers,  pistols,  and  bowie- 
knives.  They  had  tents,  flags,  and  music.  Nearly  a  thousand  of  them 
encamped  in  a  ravine  near  the  new  town  of  Lawrence,  which  they 
menaced  with  two  pieces  of  cannon  loaded  with  musket  balls.  Find- 
ing that  they  had  more  men  than  were  needed  to  carry  the  Lawrence 
District,  they  sent  detachments  to  carry  two  other  districts.  The  re- 
sult of  this  invasion  was  that  the  invaders  elected  all  the  members  of 
the  Legislature,  with  two  exceptions — one  in  either  House,  who  were 
chosen  from  a  remote  inland  district,  which  the  Missourians  over- 
looked. The  Missouri  newspapers  boldly  admitted  the  invasion,  and 
exulted  in  the  crime.  "  It  is  a  safe  calculation  that  two  thousand 
squatters  have  passed  over  into  the  promised  land  from  this  part 
of  the  State  within  four  days,"  said  the  Weston  Reporter,  a  day  before 
the  election.  "  It  is  to  be  admitted  that  they,  the  Missourians,  have 
conquered  Kansas,"  the  Platte  Argus  declared  when  the  result  was 
known.  When  the  Missouri  Brnnswickcr  learned  that  Governor 
Reeder  had  refused  to  give  certificates  to  thirteen  members  of  the 
House,  it  said,  "  This  infernal  scoundrel  will  have  to  be  hemped  yet." 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  Governor  Reeder  set  aside  the  election  in  only 
six  districts.  All  of  these  were  afterward  carried  by  the  Free  Soilers, 
except  the  Leavenworth  District,  which  was  directly  on  the  Missouri 
border.  The  acts  of  this  fraudulent  Legislature  were  systematically 
vetoed  by  Governor  Reeder,  but  they  were  passed  over  his  head,  and 
the  President  was  memorialized  for  his  removal.  This  was  effected, 


18  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

and  Wilson  Shannon,  of  Ohio,  was  appointed  in  his  stead.  Shannon 
announced  on  his  way  to  the  Territory  that  he  "  was  for  slavery  in 
Kansas,"  and  recognized  the  fraudulent  Legislature  as  a  legal  assem- 
bly. It  is  unnecessary  to  follow  the  history  of  the  Kansas  conflict 
further  in  this  place,  because  with  its  beginning  the  genesis  of  the 
Republican  party  was  complete. 


II. 


Whigs 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1856. 

The  Nomination  of  James  Buchanan — First  National  Republican 
Conventions — Colonel  Fremont — Republican  Candidates  for  the 
Vice-Presidency — The  Platform  Contrasted — Campaign  Medals 
— Contentions  of  the  Canvass — Assault  Upon  Senator  Surnner — 
The  Kansas  Conflict — Republican  Leaders  of  the  Period — Results 
of  the  Elections — The  Virulence  and  Vituperation  with  which 
the  Republicans  were  Assailed. 

N  the  Eastern  States  at  the  beginning  of  1856,  there  were 
four  parties — the  Democrats,  the  Whigs,  the  Know-Noth- 
ings,  and  the  Republicans.  Each  of  these  parties  held  a 
National  Convention — the  Democrats  at  Cincinnati,  the 
at  Baltimore,  and  the 
Know-Nothings,  or  Americans, 
and  the  Republicans  at  Phila- 
delphia. 

The  Democracy  nominated 
James  Buchanan  for  the  Presi- 
dency. Mr.  Buchanan  had  been 
a  Presidential  aspirant  since 
1844,  but  he  had  never  loomed  up 
as  a  very  formidable  candidate. 
At  the  Democratic  National  Con- 
vention that  nominated  James  K. 
Polk,  he  received  only  four  votes 
on  the  first  ballot,  and  the  highest 
number  he  obtained  was  25.  In 
1848,  he  started  with  55  votes  on 
the  first  ballot,  but  his  vote  was 
reduced  to  33  on  the  fourth,  when 
General  Cass  was  nominated. 
In  1852,  he  began  with  93  votes, 
which  were  reduced  to  28  be- 
fore the  "  stampede "  for  General  Pierce.  In  1856,  Buchanan's 
hour  had  come  at  last.  He  had  been  a  Representative  and  Senator  in 
Congress  from  Pennsylvania;  had  been  appointed  Minister  to  Russia 
by  General  Jackson;  had  been  Secretary  of  State  in  the  cabinet  of 


JAMES    BUCHANAN. 


20  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

President  Polk,  and  was  Minister  of  the  United  States  to  the  Court  of 
St.  James,  under  President  Pierce.  Cold  in  temperament  and  austere 
in  manners,  he  lacked  the  affability  of  Cass,  the  gracious  heartiness 
of  Pierce,  and  the  bluff  cordiality  of  Douglas.  Being  absent  from  the 
country,  he  had  no  part  in  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  or 
the  blunders  of  Pierce's  administration.  His  nomination  was  de- 
manded by  the  North  and  was  a  necessity  to  the  South,  but  his  success 
was  not  gained  without  a  struggle.  Pierce's  adhesion  to  the  Slave 
Power  had  made  him  a  favorite  with  the  Southern  people,  and  the 
Southern  delegates  in  the  Cincinnati  Convention  were  disposed  to 
accord  the  President  a  second  term.  Senator  Douglas  had  taken  a 
strong  hold  upon  the  Southern  heart,  and  was  regarded  as  the  natural 
heir  to  Mr.  Pierce's  support,  if  the  President's  nomination  became  im- 
possible. In  the  balloting,  Buchanan  had  the  lead  from  the  outset, 
and  gained  steadily  but  slowly,  while  Pierce's  vote  waned  rapidly, 
much  of  it  going  to  Mr.  Douglas.  The  resistance  was  maintained  until 
the  close  of  the  sixteenth  ballot,  when  Pierce  was  withdrawn  and 
Buchanan  nominated.  John  C.  Breckinridge,  of  Kentucky,  was  made 
his  associate  on  the  ticket  for  Vice-President. 

The  American  Convention  nominated  Millard  Fillmore  for  the 
Presidency,  and  Andrew  Jackson  Donelson,  of  Tennessee,  for  Vice- 
President.  These  nominations  were  ratified  by  the  Whig  Convention, 
which  met  in  Baltimore  in  September,  Edward  Bates,  of  Missouri, 
presiding.  The  determination  of  the  National  Council  to  prescribe  a 
platform  of  principles  for  the  American  Convention  gave  offense  to 
nearly  all  the  delegates  from  New  England  and  Ohio,  and  to  part  of 
those  from  Pennsylvania,  Illinois,  and  loAva,  wrho  withdrew  from  the 
Convention,  and  subsequently  nominated  Col.  John  C.  Fremont,  of 
California,  for  President,  and  William  F.  Johnston,  of  Pennsylvania, 
for  Vice-President. 

The  first  National  Republican  Convention  was  held  at  Pittsburg, 
February  22,  1856;  but  no  nominations  were  made.  Subsequently  a 
call  was  issued  for  the  Convention  that  met  in  Philadelphia  on  the 
17th  of  June.  This  was  the  most  spontaneous  National  Convention  in 
the  history  of  American  politics.  The  delegates  were  not  chosen  by 
any  settled  rule.  All  the  Free  States  wrere  represented,  as  were  also 
Delaware,  Maryland,  and  Kentucky.  In  this  convention  New  York 
cast  96  votes,  Pennsylvania  81,  and  Ohio  69.  The  convention  met  in 
Musical  Fund  Hall,  and  continued  in  session  for  three  days.  Col. 
Henry  S.  Lane,  of  Indiana,  was  made  President.  Lane  had  been  a 
Representative  in  Congress  from  1841  to  1843,  but  was  not  widely 
known  outside  of  his  owrn  State.  The  delegates  met  as  members  of 
the  same  party  for  the  first  time,  and  most  of  them  were  unknown 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1856. 


21 


to  each  other.  They  represented  all  shades  of  anti-slavery  opinion — 
the  Abolitionist,  the  Free  Soiler,  Democrats  who  had  supported  the 
Wilmot  Proviso,  and  Whigs  who  had  followed  Seward,  Weed,  and 
Greeley.  Mr.  Seward  was  the  recognized  head  of  the  party,  but  as  yet 
he  had  no  desire  for  the  Presidential  nomination.  He  believed  that 
his  time  had  not  yet  come.  Salmon  P.  Chase,  who  wras  then  Governor 
of  Ohio,  and  was  almost  equally  a  favorite  with  these  early  Repub- 
licans, was  also  averse  to  leading  a  forlorn  hope.  The  Whig  element 
of  the  party  wras  favorable  to  the  nomination  of  Judge  McLean  of  the 
Supreme  Court,  but  the  younger  men,  who  had  accepted  the  issue  pre- 
sented by  the  South  and  wrere  unwilling  to  offer  any  compromise,  de- 
manded a  younger,  a  more  energetic,  and  a  more  attractive  candidate. 
Judge  McLean  was  old,  and  belonged  to  the  past.  The  party  was 
37oung,  and  was  looking  to  the 
future.  As  it  was  a  young  men's 
convention,  it  is  not  surprising 
that  John  C.  Fremont,  of  Cal- 
ifornia, received  359  votes  to  190 
for  John  McLean,  of  Ohio. 

Fremont  was  admirably  fitted 
for  the  part  he  was  chosen  to 
perform.  The  party  and  the 
man — the  cause  and  its  stand- 
ard-bearer— were  counterparts 
of  each  other.  His  career  had 
the  spice  of  adventure,  his  life 
had  a  tinge  of  romance.  As  a 
young  lieutenant  in  the  army, 
he  had  eloped  with  Jessie  Ben- 
ton,  the  charming,  piquant,  and 

brilliant  daughter  of  the  stern  and  majestic  old  Senator  from  Mis- 
souri. In  his"  twenty-seventh  year  he  had  explored  the  South  Pass, 
and  penetrated  to  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  the  Great  Salt  Lakes. 
Still  later  he  unfolded  the  Alta  California,  the  Sierra  Nevada,  and  the 
valleys  of  the  San  Joaquin  and  the  Sacramento.  At  the  age  of  thirty- 
six  he  had  come  back  to  Washington  as  the  first  Senator  from  the 
new  State  of  California.  He  was  now  only  43.  He  was  youthful  in 
figure  and  quiet  in  manner,  with  the  reputation  of  a  savant  as  well  as 
that  of  a  hero.  He  was  not  only  the  "  Pathfinder,"  who  had  opened 
up  one-half  of  a  vast  continent  to  civilization,  but  he  now  took  the 
lead  in  freeing  the  other  half  from  slavery.  The  movement  in  his  be- 
half had  been  aided,  if  not  originated,  by  Francis  P.  Blair,  the  elder. 
Blair  had  been  hostile  to  Calhoun,  and  although  still  a  Democrat  in 


22 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 


name,  he  was  bitterly  opposed  to  the  Pro-Slavery  Democracy.  He  was 
the  intimate  and  devoted  friend  of  Colonel  Benton,  and  it  was  hoped 
that  Benton  would  oppose  Buchanan,  whom  he  never  liked,  and  sup- 
port Fremont,  whom  he  liked  very  much.  But  the  claims  of  party 
had  a  stronger  hold  upon  the  veteran  than  family  ties,  even  though 
it  was  certain  that  Buchanan's  administration  would  be  a  continua- 
tion of  that  of  President  Pierce,  to  which  Benton  had  objected  with 
all  the  fierceness  of  his  nature. 

An  informal  ballot  for  a  candidate  for  Vice-President  was  taken, 
the  men  who  were  voted  for  being  William  L.  Dayton,  of  New  Jersey; 
Abraham  Lincoln,  of  Illinois;  Nathaniel  P.  Banks,  of  Massachusetts; 
David  Wilmot,  of  Pennsylvania;  Charles  Simmer,  of  Massachusetts; 

Jacob  Collamer,  of  Vermont; 
Preston  King,  of  New  York;  S. 
C.  Pomeroy,  of  Kansas;  Henry 
Wilson,  of  Massachusetts; 
Thomas  H.  Ford,  of  Ohio;  Cas- 
sius  M.  Clay,  of  Kentucky; 
Joshua  R.  Giddings,  of  Ohio; 
William  F.  Johnston,  of  Penn- 
sylvania, and  William  Penning- 
ton,  of  New  Jersey.  Besides, 
three  votes  for  a  Mr.  Carey,  of 
New  Jersey,  whose  given  name 
seems  to  have  been  lost,  were 
cast  on  this  ballot.  Dayton  re- 
ceived 259  votes  and  Lincoln  110, 
while  Banks  had  only  40  and 
Wilmot  43.  Eleven  of  the  Penn- 
sylvania votes  went  to  Abraham 
Lincoln.  When  the  future 

President  heard,  at  his  Springfield  home,  of  the  votes  cast  for 
"  Lincoln "  for  Vice-President,  he  remarked,  "  That  is  probably 
the  distinguished  Mr.  Lincoln  of  Massachusetts."  Singularly 
enough,  the  distinguished  Mr.  Lincoln  of  Massachusetts  is  almost 
beyond  identification,  while  the  obscure  Mr.  Lincoln  of  Illinois 
enjoys  a  world-wide  fame,  and  has  a  place  in  the  hearts  of  his 
countrymen  second  only  to  the  veneration  that  is  felt  for  the  name  of 
Washington.  "  When  you  meet  Judge  Dayton  present  my  respects," 
Lincoln  wrote  to  John  Van  Dyke,  one  of  the  delegates,  a  few  days 
after  the  convention,  "  and  tell  him  I  think  him  a  far  better  man  than 
I  for  the  position  he  is  in,  and  I  shall  support  both  him  and  Colonel 
Fremont  most  cordially."  Although  Dayton  had  not  received  a  ma- 


WILLIAM    L.    DAYTON. 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1856.  23 

jority  of  votes  cast  on  the  informal  ballot,  his  nomination  was  never- 
theless at  once  made  unanimous. 

A  glance  at  the  different  candidates  before  the  Convention  for  the 
Vice-Presidency  may  not  be  inopportune,  as  affording  an  estimate  of 
the  makers  of  the  Republican  party.  Judge  Dayton  had  had  a  distin- 
guished career  as  a  Senator  in  Congress.  He  was  a  graduate  of 
Princeton  and  a  lawyer  of  eminence.  Lincoln  had  served  in  the  Illi- 
nois Legislature,  and  had  been  a  member  of  the  30th  Congress.  He 
had  gained  prominence  in  the  autumn  of  1854  by  his  vigorous' speeches 
in  Illinois  in  opposition  to  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Act,  and  the  skill 
witli  which  he  had  met  Senator  Douglas  in  joint  debate.  As  a  lawyer 
he  occupied  a  noteworthy  position  at  the  Western  bar.  Banks  was 
serving  his  second  term  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  of  which  he 
had  been  elected  Speaker  after  one  of  the  most  memorable  contests 
in  the  history  of  Congress.  Wilmot,  who  was  famous  because  of  the 
Proviso  that  bore  his  name,  was  President  Judge  of  the  Thirteenth 
Judicial  District  of  Pennsylvania.  Sumner  had  beaten  Robert  C. 
Winthrop  for  the  United  States  Senate  in  1850,  and  already  occupied 
a  prominent  position  as  an  opponent  of  slavery.  Collamer  had  been  a 
judge  in  Vermont,  a  member  of  Congress,  Postmaster-General  under 
President  Taylor,  and  was  serving  his  first  term  in  the  United  States 
Senate.  Preston  King  had  served  eight  years  in  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, and  was  then  a  Senator  from  New  York.  Both  Wilmot 
and  King  had  been  Democrats;  Sumner  was  a  Free  Soiler,  if  not  an 
Abolitionist,  and  Collamer  was  a  Whig.  Pomeroy  was  one  of  the 
champions  of  freedom,  who  emigrated  to  Kansas  from  Massachusetts 
to  aid  in  the  work  projected  by  Thayer  and  directed  by  Robinson. 
Wilson  was  serving  his  first  term  in  the  United  States  Senate.  Ford 
was  as  yet  almost  unknown.  Clay  was  conspicuous  as  a  Kentucky 
Free  Soiler,  who  maintained  the  stand  he  had  taken  in  his  own  State 
by  his  fiery  eloquence  and  determined  courage.  Giddings  was  the 
famous  Ohio  Abolitionist.  Johnston  had  been  a  Whig  Governor  of 
Pennsylvania,  and  Pennington  was,  like  Ford,  as  yet  not  widely 
known. 

The  platform  devised  by  the  Philadelphia  Convention  was  un- 
usually bold  in  its  declarations.  Not  only  did  it  "  deny  the  authority 
of  Congress,  or  of  a  Territorial  Legislature,  of  any  individual,  or  asso- 
ciation of  individuals,  to  give  legal  existence  to  slavery  in  any  Terri- 
tory of  the  United  States,"  but  it  went  further  and  resolved  "  that 
the  Constitution  confers  upon  Congress  sovereign  powrer  over  the  Ter- 
ritories of  the  United  States  for  their  government,  and  in  the  exercise 
of  this  power  the  right  and  duty  of  Congress  to  prohibit  in  the  Terri- 
tories those  twin  relics  of  barbarism — polygamy  and  slavery."  It 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 


aimed  a  blow  at  Mr.  Buchanan,  the  Democratic  candidate,  by  de- 
claring that  "  the  highwayman's  plea  that  might  makes  right,  em- 
bodied in  the  Ostend  circular,  was  in  every  respect  unworthy  of 
American  diplomacy,  and  would  bring  shame  and  dishonor  upon  any 
government  of  people  that  gave  it  their  sanction."  It  further  de- 
manded the  immediate  admission  of  Kansas  as  a  Free  State,  and  in- 
vited "  the  affiliation  and  co-operation  of  men  of  all  parties,  however 
differing  from  them  in  other  respects,  in  support  of  the  principles 
declared." 

The  platforms  of  all  the  other  Conventions  were  essentially  Pro- 
Slavery.  The  "  Americans  "  declared 
themselves  in  favor  of  the  unqualified 
recognition  and  maintenance  of  the  re- 
served rights  of  the  several  States,  and 
the  cultivation  of  harmony  and  frater- 
nal good-will  between  the  citizens  of  the 
several  States,  and  the  non-interference 
by  Congress  with  questions  appertain- 
ing solely  to  the  indi- 
vidual States,  and 
non-intervention  b  y 
each  State  with  the 
affairs  of  any  other 
State.  The  Whigs  de- 
clared their  reverence 
for  the  Constitution 
and  an  unalterable  attachment  to  the 
Union,  deplored  the  disordered  condi- 
tion of  national  affairs,  and  denounced 
parties  "  founded  only  on  geographical 
distinctions."  According  to  the  Whig 

CJ  ^ 

platform,  the  restoration  of  Mr.  Fillmore 
to  the  Presidency  would  furnish  the 
best,  if  not  the  only,  means  of  restoring 
peace.  The  Democratic  platform  indorsed  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri 
Compromise,  and  recognized  the  right  of  the  people  of  all  the  Terri- 
tories to  form  a  Constitution  with  or  without  domestic  slavery. 

The  Presidential  canvass  that  followed  was  one  of  the  most  ani- 
mated since  the  Log  Cabin  and  Hard  Cider  campaign  of  1840.  Evi- 
dence of  the  enthusiasm  with  which  the  opponents  of  slavery  en- 
tered upon  their  work  is  found  in  the  series  of  Fremont  medals  that 
were  distributed  all  over  the  North  and  WTest.  One  of  these  was 
called  "  Jessie's  Choice,"  a  reference  to  Fremont's  marriage  with 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1856.  25 

Jessie  Benton.  Another  represented  a  surveying  party  surveying  a 
mountain,  on  the  top  of  which  was  the  White  House.  Still  another, 
of  white  metal,  is  the  largest  campaign  piece  known.  The  obverse 
shows  a  fine  portrait  of  Fremont.  On  the  reverse  is  a  wreath  inclos- 
ing these  inscriptions:  "  The  Rocky  Mountains  echo  back  Fremont  "; 
"The  People's  Choice  for  1856";  "Constitutional  Freedom."  Be- 
neath the  wreath  is  a  scroll,  with  "  Free  "  in  the  middle,  and  "  Men  " 
and  "  Soil  "  at  either  end.  The  Buchanan  medals  wTere  few  in  number, 
but  one  of  them  was  especially  noteworthy.  It  was  a  large,  white 
metal  piece,  showing  on  the  obverse  "  a  buck  leaping  over  a  cannon." 
The  Know-Nothings  struck  three  medals — one  containing  a  portrait 
of  Millard  Fillmore;  one  an  American  flag  with  three  rents,  with  the 
inscription  "  Our  Flag  Trampled  Upon  ";  and  one  a  reproduction  of  a 
medal  of  the  Old  American  party,  that  in  1844  had  called  upon  Amer- 
icans to  "  Beware  of  Foreign  Influence."  These  medals,  some  of 
which  still  exist,  are  interesting  mementoes  of  the  birth  of  the  Re- 
publican party,  of  its  first  campaign,  and  especially  of  its  first  ro- 
mantic and  accomplished  candidate  for  the  Presidency. 

In  the  campaign  Fremont  was  denounced  as  a  sectional  candidate, 
whose  election  by  Northern  votes  on  an  anti-Slavery  platform  would 
dissolve  the  Union.  This  cry  wras  supported  by  the  fact  that  electoral 
tickets  were  not  presented  by  the  Republicans  in  the  Slave  States. 
On  the  other  hand,  Fillmore's  support  in  the  South  was  weakened 
by  his  obvious  inability  to  carry  any  of  the  Free  States.  Thus  the 
contest  was  soon  narrowed  to  a  battle  between  Buchanan  and  Fre- 
mont in  the  North.  The  Democratic  platform  was  differently  under- 
stood by  the  Democracy  of  the  two  sections.  In  the  North  it  was  con- 
tended that  slavery  could  not  enter  a  Territory  unless  its  inhabitants 
desired  and  approved  its  introduction.  The  Democratic  doctrine  of 
the  South  was  that  slavery  was  to  be  protected  in  the  Territories  un- 
til State  Governments  were  formed  and  admission  to  the  Union  se- 
cured. This  meant  that  in  the  Territorial  Legislatures  laws  might 
be  passed  to  protect  slavery,  but  not  to  exclude  it.  It  was  against 
this  construction  of  Mr.  Douglas's  doctrine  of  "  Popular  Sovereignty  " 
that  the  Republicans  contended.  They  claimed  that  Freedom  and  not 
Slavery  wras  the  normal  condition  of  the  Territories,  and  boldly  as- 
serted throughout  the  campaign  the  right  and  the  duty  of  Congress 
to  exclude  slavery,  as  enunciated  in  the  Philadelphia  platform.  But 
the  cries  of  sectionalism  and  disunion  were  still  more  powerful  with 
a  large  part  of  the  Northern  people,  especially  the  commercial  classes, 
then  logical  deductions  in  Constitutional  interpretation,  or  hostility 
to  the  extension  of  slavery  as  contemplated  by  the  South.  If  the  is- 
sues presented  by  the  platform  had  only  been  abstract  questions, 


26 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 


there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  Republicans  would  have  met  with 
overwhelming  defeat,  even  in  the  Free  States.  Instead  of  being  ab- 
stractions, the  canvass  palpitated  with  life  and  energy,  because  of 
the  Kansas  conflict  and  the  attempt  to  fasten  slavery  upon  Kansas 
by  force  and  fraud.  Border  ruffianism  in  the  Territory  and  the  arro- 
gance of  the  leaders  of  the  slave  power  in  Congress,  rather  than  the 
principles  of  the  Philadelphia  platform,  gave  vitality  to  the  Republi- 
can party  in  the  campaign  of  1856. 

Events  that  had  occurred  almost  upon  the  eve  of  the  meeting  of  the 
Republican  Convention  were  of  the  most  exasperating  character. 
Not  only  had  civil  war  been  precipitated  in  Kansas,  but  the  sanctity 
of  the  Senate  had  been  invaded.  While  the  Republicans  of  the  North 
and  West  were  preparing  for  the  Convention  at  Philadelphia,  Senator 
Sumuer  was  stricken  down  in  his  seat  in  the  Senate  Chamber  by 

Preston  S.  Brooks,  a  Representative 
from  South  Carolina.  For  two  days 
Sumner  had  stood  in  his  place  in  the 
Senate  delivering  a  philippic  of  ex- 
traordinary range  and  power,  aimed 
at  the  designs  of  the  South  in  behalf 
of  slavery.  This  wTas  the  speech  that 
was  sent  broadcast  over  the  land 
during  the  campaign  with  the  title 
of  the  "  Crime  Against  Kansas." 
The  audience  before  which  it  was 
delivered  was  in  keeping  with  the 
character  of  the  occasion  and  the 
fame  of  the  orator.  The  ladies'  gal- 
lery overflowed  with  the  fashionable 
and  earnest  women  of  the  capital. 
The  lobbies  were  crowded  with  poli- 
ticians from  all  parts  of  the  country,  and  with  members  of  the  House. 
With  one  or  two  exceptions  the  Senators  were  all  in  their  seats.  Few 
of  the  slave  champions  failed  to  feel  the  shock  of  Sumner's  lance.  Two 
Senators  especially  suffered  from  his  merciless  invective  and  bitter 
sarcasm.  These  were  Stephen  A.  Douglas  and  Arthur  P.  Butler. 
One  of  them  Sunnier  called  the  Don  Quixote,  the  other  the  Sancho 
Panza  of  Slavery.  Douglas  listened  with  ill-concealed  hate,  and  a 
rage  that  he  was  scarcely  able  to  repress.  His  reply  showed  how 
keenly  he  felt  the  thrusts  of  his  antagonist.  He  answered  with  vitu- 
peration and  personalities,  asking  with  undignified  vindictiveness,  as 
if  Sumner  was  unworthy  of  the  courtesy  that  one  gladiator  extends 
to  another,  "  Is  it  his  object  to  provoke  some  of  us  to  kick  him,  as  we 


CHARLES    SUMNEK. 


THE  CAMPAIGN   OF  1856.  27 

would  a  dog  in  the  street,  that  he  may  get  sympathy  upon  the  great 
chastisement?"  But  Butler  was  not  impaled  as  Douglas  had  been; 
he  was,  however,  treated  with  contemptuous  and  scathing  references 
to  "  the  loose  expectoration  of  his  speech/'  and  as  one  who  "  touches 
nothing  which  he  does  not  disfigure  with  error,  sometimes  of  prin- 
ciple, sometimes  of  fact,"  while  Butler's  State,  South  Carolina,  was 
not  spared  in  Sumner's  arraignment.  "  Has  he  read  the  history  of 
the  State  which  he  represents?  "  the  Massachusetts  Senator  asked. 
"  He  can  not  surely  have  forgotten  its  -  shameful  imbecility  from 
slavery,  continued  throughout  the  Revolution,  followed  by  its  more 
shameful  assumption  for  slavery  since."  Butler  was  absent  and,  per- 
haps, ill;  and  Brooks  came  over  from  the  House,  the  next  day,  to  be- 
come his  avenger  and  the  avenger  of  his  State.  A  few  men  knew  of 
his  purpose  to  chastise  Sumner,  among  them  Keitt,  one  of  Brooks's 
colleagues  from  South  Carolina,  and  Edmondson,  a  member  of  the 
House  from  Virginia.  Keitt  was  an  accessory  to  the  assault.  Among 
the  Senators  who  witnessed  it  were  Douglas,  who  had  talked  of  kick- 
ing Sumner  only  the  day  before,  and  three  sorry  figures  from 
the  South  in  the  subsequent  Rebellion — Toombs,  Mason,  and 
Slidell.  The  Senate  had  adjourned,  but  Sumner  was  still  at  his  desk 
absorbed  in  the  letters  he  was  writing  to  catch  the  mails  for  the 
North.  "  I  have  read  your  speech  twice  over  carefully,"  said  Brooks, 
coming  up  behind  Sumner.  "  It  is  a  libel  on  South  Carolina,  and  Mr. 
Butler,  who  is  a  relative  of  mine—  Sumner  heard  no  more,  for 

the  blows  were  raining  thick  and  fast  upon  him,  and  he  was  unable 
to  rise  because  his  long  legs  were  under  his  desk.  James  W.  Simon- 
ton,  the  agent  of  the  New  York  Associated  Press,  attempted  to  inter- 
fere, but  Keitt  rushed  in,  saying,  "  Let  them  alone,  G — d  d — n  you." 
Sumner  was  beaten  to  the  floor.  Only  the  thick  mass  of  hair  that 
covered  his  scalp  saved  him,  probably,  from  a  fatal  fracture  of  the 
skull.  It  was  many  months  before  he  fully  recovered  from  the  effects 
of  the  blows.  The  Senate  made  a  lame  complaint  to  the  House,  and 
in  anticipation  of  expulsion  Brooks  resigned.  The  Knight  of  the 
Bl.udgeon  was  not  only  re-elected,  but  was  treated  as  a  hero  in  South 
Carolina.  Some  of  his  admirers  presented  him  with  a  cane  inscribed 
"  Use  knock-down  arguments,"  and  others  gave  him  another  cane 
bearing  the  classical  legend,  "  Hit  him  again."  But  in  the  North  a 
wave  of  indignation  swept  over  the  country.  In  the  Senate  Senator 
Wilson  characterized  the  assault  upon  his  colleague  as  "  brutal,  mur- 
derous, and  cowardly,"  whereupon  Senator  Butler  exclaimed,  "  You 
are  a  liar."  Brooks  challenged  Wilson,  and  Wilson,  of  course,  de- 
clined the  challenge.  Anson  Burlingame  denounced  the  assault  in 
the  House,  and  was  challenged  by  Brooks,  but  did  not  decline  the 


28  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

challenge.  Burlingame  named  rifles  as  the  weapons,  and  the  Clifton 
House,  Canada,  as  the  place  of  meeting;  but  as  the  Massachusetts 
Representative  was  a  dead  shot  with  the  rifle,  Brooks  objected  to  the 
meeting  place  and  the  duel  never  came  off.  Brooks  was  afterward 
tried  for  the  offense  in  the  courts  of  the  District  of  Columbia,  and 
fined  $300.  The  outrage  and  its  consequences  wrere  worth  many  votes 
to  the  Republicans  in  November,  1856. 

The  Kansas  conflict  was,  of  course,  an  important  element  in  the 
campaign.  The  Territory  swarmed  with  the  minions  of  the  slave 
powrer,  intent  on  its  subjugation.  Outrages  and  murders,  even,  were 
frequent.  On  the  21st  of  May,  1850,  Lawrence  was  surrounded  by 
armed  bands  of  "  border  ruffians  "  under  General  Atchison,  who,  with 
the  "  Platte  County  Rifles  "  and  two  pieces  of  artillery,  approached 
from  Lecompton  on  the  wrest.  On  the  east  the  town  was  beleaguered 
by  a  regiment  of  wild  young  men,  mainly  recruited  in  South  Carolina 
and  Georgia,  who  had  come  to  Kansas  in  the  spring  under  Colonel  Bu- 
ford,  armed,  in  military  array,  and  with  the  avowed  purpose  of  making 
Kansas  a  slave  State.  This  force  bristled  with  weapons  obtained 
from  the  Federal  officers  in  charge  of  the  United  States  Armory,  and 
it  wras  commanded  by  a  formidable  array  of  colonels — Colonel  Titus,  of 
Florida;  Colonel  Wilkes,  from  South  Carolina,  and  Colonel  Boone,  from 
Westport,  Missouri;  and  one  General — General  String-fellow,  a  Vir- 
ginian. The  people  of  Lawrence  were  unprepared  to  resist,  and 
agreed  to  surrender  their  artillery,  which  consisted  of  a  twelve-pound 
howitzer  and  four  smooth-bore  pieces,  that  had  been  buried  some  days 
before,  and  were  now  dug  up  and  turned  over  to  the  invaders.  Then 
the  Free  State  Hotel  and  two  Free  State  printing  offices  were  de- 
stroyed at  the  instigation  of  Atchison.  The  house  of  Charles  Robin- 
son, who  had  been  elected  Governor  by  the  Free  State  settlers,  was 
next  set  on  fire,  but  the  flames  were  extinguished  before  the  building 
was  finally  consumed.  In  June  Osawatomie  was  attacked  by  a  force 
under  General  Whitfield.  The  town  of  Leavenworth,  on  the  border, 
was  taken  possession  of  by  a  large  force,  mainly  Missourians,  on  the 
1st  of  September.  One  of  the  incidents  of  this  "  Kansas  War  "  was 
the  so-called  "  battle  of  Black  Jack,"  when  twenty-eight  Free  State 
men,  led  by  old  John  Brown,  fought  and  defeated,  on  the  open  prairie, 
fifty-six  border  ruffians,  headed  by  H.  Clay  Pate,  from  Virginia.  All  of 
this  band  that  had  not  run  away  or  been  killed  were  captured,  be- 
sides their  horses,  mules,  wagons,  provisions,  and  campaign  equipage. 
A  Legislature,  chosen  under  a  Free  State  Constitution  previously 
adopted  by  the  settlers,  met  at  Topeka  on  the  4th  of  July,  but  its  mem- 
bers were  dispersed  by  a  force  of  regulars  under  Colonel  Sumner.  by 
order  of  President  Pierce.  In  spite  of  the  persecution  and  discourage- 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1856.  29 

ments  the  emigration  to  Kansas  continued,  and,  supported  by  Repub- 
lican oratory  in  the  campaign  throughout  the  North,  was  maturing 
and  hardening  into  the  bones  and  sinew  of  a  Free  State.  The  South 
gained  nothing  by  these  usurpations  and  outrages,  while  the  North 
was  consolidated  and  strengthened  in  support  of  the  Republican 
party. 

The  Republican  canvass  increased  in  animation  as  it  progressed. 
There  were  great  political  meetings  in  all  of  the  great  cities,  as  there 
always  are,  and  smaller  meetings  in  the  towns  and  villages,  and  rustic 
gatherings  in  the  schoolhouses  everywhere.  It  was  a  young  man's 
campaign,  and  the  young  men  were  the  orators  and  the  makers  of  the 
party.  Somehow  the  leaders  who  were  ambitious  by  nature,  and 
politicians  by  instinct,  had  little  real  share  in  a  movement  that  was 
too  spontaneous  for  their  cautious  methods.  Indeed,  many  of  those 
who  were  in  the  front  in  the  later  years,  and  claimed  their  full  share 
of  the  glory,  were  still  coquetting  with  their  own  consciences  as  half- 
hearted followers  of  Fillmore,  or  too  hopeful  and  confiding  adherents 
of  Buchanan.  Although  Seward  was  proclaiming  the  "  irrepressible 
conflict,"  that  made  him  an  object  of  hatred  to  the  South,  he  was  es- 
sentially a  man  of  conservative  and  conciliatory  temper,  and  had 
little  real  sympathy  with  a  candidate  whom  he  could  only  regard  as 
an  expression  of  youthful  enthusiasm  in  the  creation  of  the  party. 
Chase's  support  of  Fremont  w as  in  a  measure  perfunctory,  and  was 
extended  to  the  platform  rather  than  to  the  candidate.  Wade  was 
more  hearty,  as  was  to  be  expected  from  a  man  of  his  rugged  and 
sometimes  vindictive  nature.  Sumner  was  disabled  for  the  work  of 
the  campaign,  and  was  scarcely  able  to  do  more  than  to  go  home  to 
vote  for  Fremont  and  Dayton  and  his  gallant  and  devoted  friend, 
Anson  Burlingame.  The  real  workers  were  the  men  of  whom  Bur- 
lingame  was  a  type.  He  was  a  man  of  brawn  and  brain,  stalwart  and 
handsome,  and  brave  to  the  verge  of  recklessness.  Among  the  others 
were  Banks,  whose  election  as  Speaker  gave  him  great  prominence; 
John  Sherman,  who,  like  Banks,  was  in  his  second  term  in  Congress; 
Eli  Thayer,  whom  "  Sunset "  Cox  described  as  "  a  living  steam  en- 
gine"; Roscoe  Conkling,  then  only  beginning  a  career  that  was  to 
prove  exceptionally  brilliant;  Galusha  A.  Grow,  saucy  in  bravado,  but 
as  ready  to  give  a  blow  as  to  provoke  one;  John  A.  Bingham,  a  man  of 
unusual  eloquence  and  ardor;  and  Thaddeus  Stevens,  tenacious, 
courageous,  bitter  of  speech,  inflexible  in  the  resistance  of  wrong. 
There  was  a  still  younger  generation  in  popular  recognition  if  not  in 
years,  which  embraced  such  men  as  James  G.  Blaine,  Andrew  G. 
Curtin,  Austin  Blair,  Schuyler  Coif  ax,  and  Oliver  P.  Morton;  and  one 
still  younger,  that  was  just  leaving  college  to  begin  careers  scarcely 


30  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

less  distinguished  with  the  year  of  the  formal  organization  of  the 
Republican  party.  It  is  unnecessary  to  name  in  this  place  the  men 
who  still  cherished  the  traditions  of  the  party  of  Clay  and  Webster, 
or  lingered  with  the  Democracy,  deluding  themselves  with  the  hope 
that  Buchanan  would  reverse  the  policy  of  Pierce  in  the  Kansas  sur- 
render. 

The  result  of  the  election  was  what  had  been  foreseen.  Buchanan 
and  Breckinridge  carried  every  Slave  State,  except  Maryland.  Fill- 
more  and  Donelson  carried  Maryland  only.  Fremont  and  Dayton 
wTere  successful  in  all  the  New  England  States  by  large  majorities, 
and  in  New  York,  Ohio,  Michigan,  Wisconsin,  and  Iowa.  Buchanan 
obtained  the  electors  in  five  of  the  Free  States — New  Jersey,  Pennsyl- 
vania, Indiana,  Illinois,  and  California.  New  Jersey  and  California 
were  lost  to  the  Republicans  in  consequence  of  the  u  American  "  vote, 
and  Indiana  was  carried  by  the  Democrats  by  a  majority  of  only 
1,809,  and  Pennsylvania  by  925.  The  popular  vote  was  1,838,169  for 
Buchanan,  1.341,264  for  Fremont,  and  874,534  for  Fillmore.  With  the 
people  Mr.  Buchanan  was  in  a  minorit}^  the  combined  opposition  ex- 
ceeding his  vote  by  377,629.  These  results  astounded  and  mortified 
the  Democrats.  The  loss  of  New  York  and  Ohio  was  an  unexpected 
blow.  The  narrow  majority  in  Pennsylvania  was  scarcely  more  con- 
soling. In  Michigan  the  reverse  was  aggravated  by  the  choice  of 
Chandler  as  the  successor  of  Cass  in  the  United  States  Senate.  The 
sacrifice  involved  the  loss  of  ten  States  that  had  been  carried  by 
Pierce  in  1852 — Maine,  New  Hampshire,  Rhode  Island,  Connecticut, 
New  York,  Maryland,  Ohio,  Michigan,  Wisconsin,  and  Iowa.  It  wras 
no  recompense  for  this  loss  that  Buchanan  carried  Kentucky  and  Ten- 
nessee. Under  all  the  circumstances  the  moral  triumph  was  with  the 
Republicans.  They  had  entered  the  campaign  without  any  well- 
grounded  hopes  of  success,  but  determined  to  win  the  battle  if  the 
victory  could  be  won.  When  the  fight  was  over  they  felt  and  acted 
as  if  it  had  been  won.  The  actual  victory  at  the  polls,  in  their  view, 
was  only  postponed.  So  far  from  being  discouraged  were  they,  that 
it  was  seen  that  the  conflict  in  the  battle  of  Freedom  against  Slavery 
in  the  Territories  was  to  be  fought  to  the  end.  Mr.  Buchanan  came 
to  the  Presidency  with  an  almost  solid  North  against  a  solid  South. 
The  battle  had  been  fought  without  flinching  and  without  compro- 
mise, and  with  a  full  understanding  of  the  fact  that  the  platform, 
"  Free  Soil,  Free  Speech,  Free  Men,"  was  an  incitement,  if  not  an  in- 
vitation, to  Southern  revolt  in  case  of  their  success.  They  wrent  into  a 
contest  that  had  become  a  necessity  of  national  preservation  and  in- 
tegrity. Beaten  in  their  first  campaign,  they  were  resolved  to  con- 
tinue the  fight  in  Kansas  and  on  the  floors  of  Congress,  and  four  years 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1856.  31 

I 

later,   with  a  "  rail-splitter "  for  a  candidate,  they  won  a  signal 
triumph. 

In  looking  back  at  a  campaign,  so  bitter  in  its  conduct  and  so 
momentous  in  its  consequences,  one  can  not  fail  to  marvel  at  the 
fanaticism  and  the  virulence  inspired  by  slavery.  It  was  to  be  ex- 
pected, perhaps,  that  Fremont  as  the  candidate  of  a  new,  bold,  and 
aggressive  party,  should  be  depicted  in  lurid  colors,  but  it  is  impos- 
sible now,  without  regard  to  party  or  to  sections,  to  recall  the  terms 
in  which  he  was  denounced  without  a  sense  of  shame.  In  the  hostile 
journals,  North  and  South,  he  was  described  as  a  vain,  shallow,  pre- 
tentious, "  wToolly-horse,"  "  mule-eating,"  "  free-love,"  "  nigger-em- 
bracing," black  Republican;  an  extravagant,  insubordinate,  reckless 
adventurer;  a  financial  spendthrift,  and  a  political  mountebank.  All 
this  has  no  significance  now,  except  as  it  points  to  the  passion  that 
was  behind  it.  But  what  is  more  remarkable  than  the  abuse  of  the 
black  Republicans  and  their  candidate  in  the  newspapers  and  in 
political  speeches  was  the  obloquy  heaped  upon  the  North  and  upon 
Northern  statesmen  even  in  the  Senate.  "  I  have  said  that  the  neces- 
sity of  political  position,"  said  Senator  Mason,  of  Virginia,  in  his  re- 
pty  to  Sumner,  "  alone  brings  me  into  relations  with  men  upon  this 
floor  who  elsewhere  I  cannot  acknowledge  as  possessing  manhood  in 
any  form.  I  am  constrained  to  hear  here  depravity,  vice  in  its  most 
odious  form,  uncoiled  in  this  presence,  exhibiting  its  loathsome  de- 
formities in  accusation  and  villification  against  the  quarter  of  the 
country  from  which  I  come;  and  I  must  listen  to  it  because  it  is  a 
necessity  of  my  position,  under  a  common  Government,  to  recognize 
as  an  equal,  politically,  one  whom  to  see  elsewhere  is  to  shun  and  de- 
spise." Sumner  himself  could  use  invective  more  scathing  than  this, 
and  his  philippics  sometimes  wrere  not  free  from  vituperation,  but  even 
his  arraignment  of  South  Carolina  and  its  Senator  fell  short  of  im- 
puting a  want  of  manhood  to,  and  charging  depravity  and  vice  upon, 
the  majority  of  the  American  people  and  their  representatives,  for 
no  other  reason  than  their  opposition  to  the  extension  of  slavery.  In 
the  eyes  of  the  South  every  man  was  a  scoundrel,  or  worse,  who  dared 
to  oppose  the  Slave  Power,  and  such  epithets  were  freely  employed 
in  the  campaign  of  1856,  with  equal  facility  in  the  Senate  at  Wash- 
ington and  in  the  bar-rooms  of  Missouri.  The  South  was  so  sincerely 
in  earnest  that  few  men  in  the  Southern  Democracy  were  capable  of 
perceiving  that  their  ardor  and  their  virulence  were  ludicrous,  or  that 
their  denunciations  of  Northern  "  fanatics  "  betrayed  a  more  unrea- 
soning and  intolerable  fanaticism  than  that  which  they  imputed  to 
their  adversaries.  And  yet  when  the  tragi-comedy  they  were  then 
playing  had  closed  as  one  of  the  most  terrible  tragedies  in  history,  a 


32  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

Southern  historian  calmly  assumed  that  "  the  slavery  question  really 
involved  but  little  of  moral  sentiment";  that  the  repeal  of  the  Mis- 
souri Compromise  was  "  scarcely  more  than  a  matter  of  principle,  or 
sentiment";  and  that  the  doctrine  of  "Popular  Sovereignty"  had 
been  imposed  on  the  Southern  people  by  the  "  arts  of  an  able  and  elo- 
quent demagogue."  But  what  the  South  never  realized  until  it  was 
vanquished  was  that  the  Republican  party  was  a  young  giant  at  its 
birth,  and  that  the  bitterness  with  which  it  was  assailed  constantly 
added  to  its  strength  and  power. 


III. 

DEVELOPMENT  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PARTY. 

The  Dred  Scott  Decision— Pro-Slavery  Attitude  of  the  Supreme 
Court — Effects  of  the  Decision — Kansas  Governors — Reeder,  Shan- 
non, Geary,  and  Walker — The  Lecompton  Constitution — Demo- 
cratic Opposition  to  It— Failure  of  the  Conspiracy — Douglas  and 
Lincoln — The  Congress  of  Secession — Union  Soldiers  in  Congress- 
Confederate  Military  Leaders — Prominent  Men  in  the  36th  Con- 
gress— Political  Effects  of  the  Lecompton  Conspiracy — John 
Brown's  Raid  on  Harper's  Ferry — Attempts  to  Hold  the  Repub- 
lican Party  Responsible  for  Brown's  Acts — Helper's  Book,  "  The 
Impending  Crisis  " — Republican  Strength,  not  Weakness,  Results. 


R.  BUCHANAN'S  administration  opened  with  an  apparent 
triumph  even  greater  than  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Com- 
promise. This  was  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States  in  the  Dred  Scott  case.  Dred  Scott,  a 
negro,  was  held  as  a  slave  in  Missouri  by  Dr.  Emerson,  an  army  sur- 
geon. This  was  in  1834.  In  that  year  the  surgeon  was  transferred  to 
Rock  Island,  Illinois,  and  took  his  slave  with  him.  Two  years  later 
Dr.  Emerson  was  sent  to  Fort  Snelling,  in  what  is  now  Minnesota, 
and  again  carried  Dred  along  with  the  rest  of  his  personal  effects. 
At  Fort  Snelling  he  met  Major  Taliaferro,  who  had  in  his  service  a 
black  woman  known  as  Harriet.  The  doctor  bought  this  woman  from 
the  major,  and  with  his  consent  she  was  married  to  his  other  slave, 
Dred.  Two  children  were  born  to  this  slave  couple — Eliza,  on  a  Mis- 
sissippi steamboat  and  north  of  the  Missouri  line,  and  Lizzie  at  Jef- 
ferson Barracks,  in  Missouri.  The  entire  family  was  afterwards  sold 
to  John  A.  H.  Sanford,  of  the  city  of  New  York.  On  this  state  of  facts 
Dred  afterward  brought  suit  for  his  freedom  in  the  Circuit  Court  of 
St.  Louis  county,  and  obtained  a  verdict  and  judgment  in  his  favor. 
This  was  reversed  by  the  Missouri  Supreme  Court,  and  taken  on  ap- 
peal to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  The  case  was  heard 
by  the  Supreme  Court  at  Washington  in  May,  1854,  and  should  have 
been  decided  early  in  1856,  but  in  view  of  the  conflict  in  Kansas  and 
the  pending  Presidential  election,  judgment  was  deferred  until  after 
Mr.  Buchanan's  inauguration.  Although  the  decision  had  not  been 
announced  at  the  time  of  the  inauguration,  Mr.  Buchanan  alluded  to 
it  in  his  inaugural  address  as  a  final  settlement  of  the  question  of 
slavery  in  the  Territories,  and  declared  his  intention  to  submit  to  it, 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 


as  was  the  duty  of  all  good  citizens.  When  the  announcement  was 
made  the  decision  was  received  with  indignation  and  scorn  through- 

c*  & 

out  the  North.  The  Court  not  only  undertook  to  remand  Dred  Scott 
back  to  slavery,  but  assumed  the  right  to  settle  the  status  of  all  the 
Territories  belonging  to  the  United  States  as  Slave  Territory.  The 
act  of  Congress  prohibiting  slavery  north  of  36  degrees  30  minutes 
was  declared  unconstitutional  and  void.  Thus  was  not  only  the  re- 
peal of  the  Missouri  Compromise  approved  by  the  highest  judicial 
tribunal  in  the  land,  but  its  re-enactment  was  forbidden. 

The  opinion  of  the  Court  was  pronounced  by  Chief  Justice  Taney. 
Tauey  had  been  appointed  to  the  position  he  then  held  twenty  years 
before  by  President  Jackson,  whose  flexible  instrument  he  had  been 

in  Jackson's  conflict  with  the  Bank 
of  the  United  States.  He  was  a  State- 
Rights,  Pro-Slavery  partisan.  Apart 
from  his  conclusions  his  opinion  was, 
perhaps,  the  most  extraordinary  doc- 
ument that  ever  came  from  the  high- 
est judicial  tribunal  of  a  free  people. 
It  has  since  been  claimed  for  him 
he  was  sincere  in  all  his  declarations. 
But  this  is  the  plea  that  was  justly 
derided  of  the  man  who  "  did  not 
know  it  was  loaded."  Three  of  the 
Associated  Justices  who  were  from 
the  South — Justice  Wayne,  of  Geor- 
gia; Justice  Daniel,  of  Virginia,  and 
Justice  Campbell,  of  Alabama,  con- 
curred with  the  Chief  Justice  in  all 

his  conclusions,  and  Justice  Catron,  of  Tennessee,  concurred  in  the 
judgment  so  far  as  Dred  Scott  was  concerned,  holding  that  his  two 
years'  residence  in  Illinois  had  given  him  no  right  to  freedom;  but  he 
dissented  from  the  Chief  Justice's  notion  that  Congress  had  no  power 
to  govern  the  Territories.  Justice  Catron  held,  however,  that  slave- 
holders had  an  indefeasible  right  to  carry  their  slaves  into,  and  hold 
them  in,  the  Territories  belonging  to  the  United  States.  Thus  his 
dissent  resolved  itself  into  a  mere  quibble.  It  will  be  observed  that 
these  five  justices,  a  majority  of  the  Court,  were  all  from  the  Slave 
States.  The  conclusions  of  Justice  Nelson,  of  New  York,  and  Justice 
Grier,  of  Pennsylvania,  involved  the  absurdity  of  according  to  Con- 
gress the  right  to  establish  slavery  in  the  Territories,  but  not  to  pro- 
hibit it.  The  dissenting  judges  were  Justice  McLean,  of  Ohio,  and 
Justice  Curtis,  of  Massachusetts.  Practically  the  Court  stood  seven 


ROGhR    B.    TANEY. 


DEVELOPMENT  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PARTY.        35 

to  two,  although  Justice  Catron  manifested  a  gleam  of  independence 
in  sustaining  the  power  of  Congress  over  the  Territories. 

This  decision  gave  a  powerful  impetus  to  the  Republican  party  at 
the  very  outset  of  Mr.  Buchanan's  administration,  and  was  an  essen- 
tial element  in  its  development  and  growth.  If  the  decision  had  been 
announced  before  the  Presidential  election,  it  is  probable  Mr.  Bu- 
chanan would  have  been  defeated.  Coming  after  his  inauguration,  it 
served  to  keep  alive  the  issues  upon  which  he  had  been  chosen,  even 
apart  from  the  continued  outrages  in  Kansas.  William  Pitt  Fessen- 
den  declared,  in  a  speech  in  the  Senate,  his  belief  that  in  the  event 
of  Fremont's  election,  "  we  should  never  have  heard  of  a  doctrine  so 
utterly  at  variance  with  all  truth,  so  utterly  destitute  of  all  legal 
logic,  so  founded  on  error,  and  unsupported  by  anything  resembling 
argument."  It  is  doubtful  whether  this  assumption  is  in  keeping  with 
the  temper  of  the  time,  even  on  the  Bench  of  the  Supreme  Court.  The 
Slave  Power  was  desperate.  All  its  expedients  had  failed,  or  were  on 
the  verge  of  failure.  The  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  was  suffi- 
cient to  carry  slavery  into  the  Territories,  but  not  to  keep  it  there. 
It  was  evident  that  in  the  race  of  emigration  the  South  could  not  com- 
pete with  the  North.  If  the  people  of  the  new  Northwest  had  control 
over  their  own  institutions  in  its  territorial  condition,  it  was  inevi- 
table that  all  the  new  States  would  be  Free  States.  The  edict  of  the 
Supreme  Court  was  aimed  at  this  condition,  the  Court  holding  that 
"  it  was  unconstitutional  for  Congress  to  decree  freedom  for  a  Terri- 
tory of  the  United  States,"  but  in  reaching  this  conclusion  the  Court 
went  beyond  the  real  question  at  issue  in  the  case  of  Dred  Scott,  and 
thus  the  decision  became  a  political  subterfuge  for  providing  slavery 
with  a  bulwark  in  the  Territories.  The  motives  were  such  as  should 
not  have  influenced  a  judicial  tribunal.  The  effect  was  what  might 
have  been  expected,  and  instead  of  proving  of  value  to  the  South  it 
provoked  the  intense  hostility  of  the  North. 

With  slavery  unalterably  fixed  upon  all  the  Territories  as  their 
normal  condition  by  a  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court,  the  next  step 
wasto  force  a  Pro-Slavery  Constitution  upon  Kansas.  When  the  35th 
Congress  met  in  December,  1857,  the  Territory  had  already  had  three 
Governors — Andrew  H.  Reeder,  Wilson  Shannon,  and  John  WT.  Geary. 
All  of  them  were  Democrats — all  were  from  the  North,  and  all  had 
failed.  None  of  them  was  disposed  at  the  outset  to  resist  the  wish 
of  the  South  to  make  Kansas  a  slave  State,  if  it  could  be  done  with 
any  decent  regard  for  the  rights  of  the  people  of  the  Territory;  but 
each  revolted  in  turn  at  the  methods  employed  by  the  minions  of  the 
Slave  Power.  Reeder  had  become  as  hateful  to  the  turbulent  element 
as  the  most  hated  Abolitionist,  and  after  his  election  as  Delegate  in 


36 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 


Congress  by  the  Free  State  men  he  was  impelled  to  escape  from  the 
Territory  in  disguise  to  save  his  life.  Shannon  gave  almost  as  great 
offense  by  his  impotent  attempts  at  fairness,  and  in  September,  1856, 
was  superseded  by  Geary.  If  Geary  had  consented  to  join  in  the 
effort  to  fasten  slavery  upon  Kansas  by  means  of  the  Lecompton 
Constitution,  he  might  have  retained  his  office  and  received  the  sup- 
port of  the  administration.  He  chose  to  resign  on  the  day  that  Mr. 
Buchanan  was  inaugurated,  and  Robert  J.  Walker,  of  Mississippi, 
was  appointed  in  his  place.  Mr.  Walker  was  born  in  Pennsylvania, 
but  he  had  lived  in  the  South  from  early  manhood,  and  was  a  South- 
ern man  in  sympathy  and  interest.  He  was  a  man  of  great  ability  and 
large  experience.  He  had  been  for  ten  years  a  Senator  from  Missis- 
sippi, and  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  under  President  Polk.  If  any 

man  could  govern  the  Territory  in  the 
interest  of  the  South,  and  at  the  same 
time  hold  the  wavering  Democrats  in 
the  North  true  to  their  party  allegi- 
ance, it  was  believed  that  he  was  the 
man.  He  soon  found,  however,  that 
the  task  committed  to  him  was  be- 
yond his  powers  without  the  sacrifice 
of  his  own  honor,  and  what  Keeder 
and  Geary  had  done  under  Pierce  he 
was  compelled  to  do,  with  even  greater 
effect,  under  Buchanan. 

The  Lecompton  Constitution  was 
framed  by  a  fraudulent  Convention 
called  by  a  fraudulent  Legislature. 
It  provided  for  the  admission  of  Kan- 
sas as  a  Slave  State,  without  regard  to  the  wishes  of  the  people 
of  the  Territory.  It  is  nowT  almost  universally  conceded  that 
this  Constitution  was  adopted  by  votes,  the  majority  of  which  wrere 
never  cast  at  all,  or  had  been  cast  by  men  who  were  not  citizens  of 
Kansas.  The  Free  State  men  refused  to  have  anything  to  do  with  a 
contrivance  so  fraudulent  as  this  so-called  Constitution,  and  had  re- 
fused to  vote.  The  Lecompton  Constitution  was  received  by  the 
President  late  in  January,  1858,  and  by  him  transmitted  to  Congress 
on  the  2d  of  February,  with  a  message  declaring  Kansas  as  much  a 
Slave  State  as  Georgia,  or  South  Carolina;  recognizing  the  invaders 
from  Missouri  as  rightly  entitled  to  form  a  Constitution  for  the  State, 
and  treating  the  anti-slavery  people  of  Kansas  as  in  rebellion  against 
lawful  authority.  The  effects  of  this  message,  and  the  attempt  to  force 
the  admission  of  Kansas  as  a  Slave  State,  wras  a  schism  in  the  Demo- 


GEN.    JOHN    W.    GEARY. 


DEVELOPMENT   AND   GROWTH    OF  THE   PARTY.  37 

cratic  part}-  that  never  was  healed.  The  first  to  refuse  to  sustain  the 
iniquity  was  Senator  Douglas.  Douglas  had  gone  to  great  lengths  to 
give  the  control  of  Kansas  to  the  South;  he  had  applauded  and  up- 
held the  Dred  Scott  decision,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  charged  that  he  as- 
sented to  it  before  it  was  pronounced.  It  wras,  of  course,  more  im- 
portant to  the  South  to  secure  Kansas  as  a  Slave  State  than  to  carry 
Illinois  for  Mr.  Douglas,  but  for  Mr.  Douglas  the  loss  of  Illinois  meant 
the  close  of  his  public  career.  He  had  made  great  sacrifices  for  the 
South,  and  now  he  wras  asked  to  sacrifice  himself.  He  determined, 
therefore,  to  make  a  bold  stand,  not  so  much  against  slavery  as 
against  the  iniquity  by  which  its  triumph  was  to  be  enforced. 
"  Rarely  in  our  history,"  says  Mr.  Elaine,  in  his  "  Twenty  Years  of 
Congress,"  "  has  the  action  of  a  single  person  been  attended  by  a 
public  interest  so  universal;  applause  so  hearty  in  the  North,  by  de- 
nunciation so  bitter  in  the  South."  Following  the  lead  of  Douglas  in 
the  Senate  were  Broderick  of  California,  Stuart  of  Michigan,  and 
Piigh  of  Ohio;  and  in  the  House,  such  inflexible  Democrats  as  John 
B.  Haskin  and  Horace  F.  Clark  of  New  York,  John  Hickman  and 
Henry  Chapman  of  Pennsylvania,  and  Samuel  S.  Cox  of  Ohio — but 
altogether  only  twelve  who  finally  refused  to  yield.  Douglas  was  the 
leader,  but  Broderick  was  the  soul  of  this  little  band  of  Independent 
Democrats.  Elected  to  the  Senate  as  the  colleague  of  William  M. 
Gwin,  in  1856,  Broderick  instinctively  took  sides  against  the  arro- 
gant domination  of  the  Southern  wing  of  the  party  of  which  Uwin 
was  a  leader,  and  joined  Douglas  in  opposition  to  the  Lecomptou 
policy  of  the  administration.  His  course  aroused  fierce  hostility  in 
California,  and  these  resentments  led  to  his  death  in  1859,  in  a  duel 
deliberately  planned  for  his  destruction.  The  opposition  availed 
nothing  in  the  Senate,  and  the  Lecompton  bill  was  passed  by  a  vote 
of  33  to  25.  In  the  House  the  resistance  was  more  effective,  and  the 
administration,  with  all  its  power,  w^as  unable  to  force  the  passage  of 
the  bill  without  a  Proviso  submitting  the  entire  Constitution  to  a  vote 
of  the  people.  The  Senate  concurred  in  this  amendment,  and  the 
struggle  was  over.  The  Pro-Slavery  men  were  defeated,  and  Kansas 
in  the  end  became  a  Free  State. 

The  struggle  over  the  Lecompton  Constitution  in  Congress  lasted 
three  months.  The  effect  of  the  episode  upon  the  Democratic  party 
was  disastrous.  In  the  North  the  Democracy  was  rent  by  dissensions 
and  torn  by  faction.  In  the  South  Douglas  was  denounced  with  a 
malevolence  as  great  as  that  heaped  upon  Fremont  two  years  be- 
fore. While  he  regained  something  of  his  old  popularity  in  the  Free 
States,  there  were  few  signs  of  relenting  among  Northern  Republi- 
cans. The  Illinois  Republicans  were  especially  unforgiving.  They 


38  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

attributed  his  hostility  to  the  Lecompton  Constitution  to  the  instinct 
of  self-preservation,  and  prepared  to  contest  his  return  to  the  Senate. 
The  candidate  named  to  oppose  him  was  Abraham  Lincoln.  The  two 
men  \vere  utterly  unlike  each  other.  Douglas  was  small  of  stature, 
with  long  and  grizzled  hair,  and  his  admirers  were  fond  of  calling 
him  "  the  little  giant."  In  manner  he  was  frank,  hearty,  cordial,  af- 
fable; in  debate  he  was  bold,  dashing,  fearless,  fluent,  never  hesitat- 
ing for  a  word  or  a  phrase,  aggressive,  and  sometimes  arrogant. 
Douglas  was  45  years  old  and  Lincoln  was  49.  The  latter  was  very 
tall,  very  angular,  and  his  beardless  face  was  dark  and  seamed.  His 
head,  poised  on  a  very  long  neck,  was  massive.  In  manner  he  was 
bright  and  alert;  in  disposition  good-tempered  and  generous;  and  in 
speech  clear,  direct,  and  simple,  with  a  vein  of  quaintness  underlying 
his  arguments  that  was  neither  wit  nor  humor,  but  a  blending  of 

both,  and  very  effective  with  Western  audi- 
ences. He  had  need  of  all  the  gifts  that  na- 
ture had  bestowed  upon  him  for  the  forensic 
contest  that  was  before  him.  Douglas  was 
everywhere  known  as  a  debater  of  remark- 
able skill.  He  was  fertile  in  resources,  and 
a  master  of  logic,  and  no  one  excelled  him  in 
the  employment  of  fallacy  and  the  use  of 
sophistry.  To  meet  him  in  debate  was  to 
court  destruction  in  the  first  encounter.  Lin- 
coln was  not  only  anxious  to  run  the  risk,  but 
determined  to  meet  his  antagonist  in  joint 
discussion.  After  some  preliminary  spar- 
STEPHEN  A.  DOUGLAS.  ring,  the  terms  of  the  great  contest  were 

arranged.  It  was  agreed  that  the  two  candi- 
dates should  meet  on  the  same  platform,  and  appeal  to  the 
same  audiences.  It  was  a  battle  of  the  giants.  The  two 
men  were  always  promptly  on  the  field,  and  wherever  they 
went  they  were  met  by  vast  outpourings  of  the  people.  There  were 
seven  of  these  joint  debates,  and  when  they  were  over  the  friends  of 
each  claimed  the  victory  for  their  own  champion.  In  dignity,  good- 
humor,  and  gentleness,  Lincoln  unquestionably  had  the  better  of  his 
antagonist,  for  Douglas  frequently  resorted  to  the  use  of  epithets 
and  insinuation,  and  habitually  spoke  of  the  Republican  party  as 
"  Black  Republicans."  Douglas  saved  his  seat  in  the  United  States 
Senate,  but  Lincoln  won  the  moral  victory,  and  his  defeat  paved  the 
way  for  the  marvelous  career  that  has  made  his  name  immortal. 

While  the  forensic  contest  between  Douglas  and  Lincoln  was  in 
progress  in  Illinois  the  election  of  the  36th  Congress  was  pending — 


DEVELOPMENT  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PARTY. 


39 


the  Congress  of  Secession.  In  the  House  of  Representatives  of  that 
extraordinary  Congress  there  were  109  Republicans,  101  Democrats, 
26  Americans,  and  1  who  was  still  known  as  a  Whig.  William  Pen- 
nington  of  New  Jersey,  a  Republican,  and  a  man  of  splendid  presence, 


ABRAHAM     LINCOLN. 


but  a  poor  parliamentarian,  was  chosen  Speaker  after  a  bitter  con- 
test lasting  two  months.  Among  the  Representatives  were  many 
members,  on  both  sides  of  the  floor,  who  afterward  became  conspicu- 
ous in  the  war  between  the  States.  Among  these  were  Oilman  Mars- 
ton,  and  Mason  W.  Tappan,  of  New  Hampshire,  each  of  whom  led  a 


40  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

well-equipped  regiment  to  the  field,  and  served  conspicuously  during 
the  war;  Orris  S.  Ferry,  of  Connecticut,  also  a  soldier,  and  afterward 
a  Senator;  Daniel  E.  Sickles,  who  organized  the  "  Excelsior  Brigade  " 
and  achieved  the  proud  distinction  of  becoming  one  of  the  heroes  of 
Gettysburg;  John  Cochrane,  also  a  Democrat,  but  a  sturdy  Unionist, 
as  became  one  of  his  Revolutionary  ancestry;  and  Alfred  Ely,  who 
was  captured  by  the  famous  "  Black  Horse  Cavalry,"  after  the  first 
battle  of  Bull  Run,  and  hurried  to  the  Confederate  capital,  with  the 
cry  of  "  On  to  Richmond  "—all  of  New  York;  Philip  B.  Fouke,  John 
A.  Logan,  and  John  A.  McClernand,  three  Democratic  members  from 
Illinois,  all  Union  soldiers,  and  two  of  them  especially  conspicuous; 
Cadwalader  C.  Washburn  and  Charles  H.  Larrabee,  of  Wisconsin, 
the  one  a  Republican  and  the  other  a  Democrat,  but  both  in  the 
Union  army;  and  Colonel  William  Vandever  and  Samuel  11.  Curtis, 
of  Iowa,  the  latter  the  hero  of  Pea  Kidge.  As  a  Delegate  from  Wash- 
ington Territory  was  Isaac  I.  Stevens,  a  graduate  of  West  Point,  and 
a  splendid  soldier,  who  fell  at  the  head  of  his  division  at  Chantilly, 
Virginia,  in  1862.  In  the  Senate  there  was  only  one  conspicuous 
figure  of  the  war  of  which  the  36th  Congress  was  the  prelude — Ed- 
ward D.  Baker,  who  fell  at  Ball's  Bluff,  in  the  autumn  of  1861.  It  is  a 
meager  list,  it  must  be  confessed,  and  there  were  among  them  as  many 
Democrats  as  Republicans.  In  later  Congresses  were  seen  the  faces 
of  sun-browned  warriors  from  the  field  and  battle-scarred  veterans  of 
the  strife. 

In  the  Senate,  from  the  beginning  until  near  the  close  of  Mr.  Bu- 
chanan's administration,  sat  Jefferson  Davis,  the  chief  conspirator  of 
that  stirring  epoch,  and  the  soul  of  the  impending  conflict.  With  him 
were  some  of  the  members  of  his  future  Cabinet,  and  others  who  were 
to  sit  as  members  of  the  so-called  Confederate  Congress,  but  there 
were  only  three,  aside  from  Vice-President  Breckinridge,  who  aspired 
to  military  command — Wigfall,  of  Texas,  who  was  at  the  firing  on 
Fort  Sumter;  Toombs,  of  Georgia,  who  commanded  a  brigade1  under 
Longstreet;  and  Clingman,  of  North  Carolina,  but  none  of  them  was 
really  efficient  or  distinguished  in  the  war  they  helped  to  precipitate. 
In  the  House  almost  every  Southern  State  had  a  general — some  of 
them  a  number  of  generals.  Of  the  Virginia  delegation  Roger  A. 
Prior  was  to  become  a  "  rebel  brigadier,"  "  Extra  Billy  "  Smith  a 
major-general,  and  A.  G.  Jenkins  to  lead  the  cavalry  when  Lee  en- 
tered Pennsylvania;  North  Carolina  had  Branch,  killed  at  Antietam, 
Ruffin,  who  died  of  his  wounds  while  a  prisoner,  and  Vance,  better 
known  after  than  during  the  war;  South  Carolina  was  represented 
by  only  one  future  brigadier,  Bonham,  but  Keitt  fell  at  the  head  of 
his  regiment  at  Cold  Harbor,  and  Ashmore  served  in  an  humbler 


DEVELOPMENT  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PARTY.        41 

capacity;  Georgia,  too,  had  only  one  Congressional  brigadier,  Gart- 
rell;  Tennessee  had  three — Hatton,  killed  at  Seven  Pines,  Quarles,and 
Wright;  Alabama  had  two  Confederate  colonels — Moore,  killed  in 
the  seven  days'  fight,  and  Curry,  afterward  Minister  to  Spain  and 
then  a  clergyman;  and  Mississippi  had  Barksdale,  killed  at  Gettys- 
burg, General  Otho  K.  Singleton,  Reuben  Davis,  a  colonel,  and  L.  Q. 
C.  Lamar,  whose  highest  rank  was  lieutenant-colonel.  In  the  Senate 
was  Mallory,  of  Florida,  who  became  Secretary  of  the  Confederate 
Navy,  and  in  the  House,  Reagan,  of  Texas,  the  Confederate  Postmas- 
ter-General. Colonel  Lines  used  to  say  that  he  once  saved  the  fortifi- 
cations at  Richmond  by  crying  out,  "  Reagan  and  his  troops  to  the 
right,"  u  Mallory  and  his  brigades  to  the  left." 

In  the  36th  Congress  there  were  many  Republicans  who  were  con- 
spicuous then,  and  were  to  be  more  conspicuous  afterward — Lot  M. 
Morrill  and  William  Pitt  Fessenden,  of  Maine;  John  P.  Hale,  of  New 
Hampshire;  Collamer  and  Foot,  of  Vermont;  Sumner  and  Wilson, 
of  Massachusetts;  Anthony,  of  Rhode  Island;  Seward  and  Preston 
King,  of  New  York;  Simon  Cameron,  of  Pennsylvania;  Wade,  of 
Ohio;  Chandler  and  Bingham,  of  Michigan;  Trumbull,  of  Illinois; 
Durkee  and  Doolittle,  of  Wisconsin;  Rice,  of  Minnesota,  and  Harlan 
and  Grimes,  of  Iowa,  in  the  Senate;  and  in  the  House,  besides  those 
who  served  in  the  war,  Justin  S.  Morrill,  of  Vermont;  Charles  Francis 
Adams,  John  B.  Alley,  Anson  Burlinganie,  Henry  L.  Dawes,  Alexan- 
der H.  Rice,  and  Eli  Thayer,  of  Massachusetts;  Roscoe  Conkling, 
Reuben  E.  Fenton,  and  Francis  E.  Spinner,  of  New  York;  John  Co- 
vode,  Galusha  A.  Grow,  Edward  McPherson,  and  Thaddeus  Stevens, 
of  Pennsylvania;  James  M.  Ashley,  John  A.  Bingham,  Thomas  Cor- 
win,  and  John  Sherman,  of  Ohio;  William  A.  Howard,  of  Michigan; 
Schuyler  Colfax,  of  Indiana;  Owen  Lovejoy  and  E.  B.  Washburne,  of 
Illinois;  and  William  Windom,  of  Minnesota.  There  was  also  a  num- 
ber of  Democrats  conspicuous  then  and  afterward — Horace  F.  Clark 
and  John  B.  Haskin,  of  New  York;  John  Hickman,  of  Pennsylvania; 
William  Allen,  Samuel  S.  Cox,  and  Clement  L.  Vallandingham,  of 
Ohio;  and  William  H.  English,  William  S.  Holman,  and  William  E. 
Niblack,  of  Indiana.  The  prominent  "  Americans  "  were  Henry  Win- 
ter Davis,  of  Maryland,  and  Horace  Maynard,  of  Tennessee.  In  the 
Senate  still  lingered  James  A.  Bayard,  of  Delaware,  and  John  J.  Crit- 
tenden,  of  Kentucky,  and  Andrew  Johnson  was  the  junior  Senator 
from  Tennessee. 

In  the  elections  that  gave  the  Republicans  virtual  control  of  the 
3(>th  Congress  they  owed  much  to  Governor  Walker's  repudiation  of 
the  frauds  in  Kansas,  followed  by  his  manly  resignation  of  an  office 
he  could  no  longer  hold  with  honor.  Sent  to  the  Territory  by  an  ad- 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 


ministration  that  had  betrayed  the  solemn  pledge  that  had  made  Mr. 
Buchanan's  election  possible,  it  was  believed  by  the  Pro-Slavery  men 
that  Walker  would  be  in  hearty  sympathy  with  their  plans.  It  was 
Walker's  protest,  more  than  anything  else,  that  paved  the  way  to  the 
freedom  of  Kansas  and  the  annihilation  of  the  Pro-Slavery  conspiracy 
in  Kansas  and  in  Congress.  His  manly  course  thrilled  the  people  of 
the  whole  country,  and  aided  to  demolish  the  Democracy  in  nearly  all 
the  Free  States.  It  destroyed  Democratic  prestige  in  New  York,  and 
revolutionized  some  of  the  most  constant  and  intensely  Democratic 
districts  in  Pennsylvania.  It  swept  New  Jersey  for  the  Republicans. 
It  gave  courage  to  the  anti-Lecompton  Democrats  to  antagonize  the 
administration  in  spite  of  its  power  and  patronage,  and  to  win  the 
battle  for  freedom.  Walker  was,  of  course,  proscribed  by  the  South 

and  by  the  administration;  but  this 
very  proscription  was  an  impulse  to- 
ward Republican  success,  and  helped 
to  give  vitality  to  the  Republican 
party.  The  proscription  of  Walker 
was  followed  by  others  equally  malig- 
nant, and  all  the  more  inexcusable  be- 
cause they  were  petty  as  well  as  malig- 
nant. The  anti-Lecompton  Democrats 
were  treated  with  all  the  contumely  it 
was  possible  to  heap  upon  them.  Men 
like  Haskin  and  Hickman  were  beyond 
pardon,  and  even  Mr.  Cox,  of  Ohio,  then 
a  very  young  man,  and  ardent  and  im- 
pulsive, was  made  to  feel  that  he  had 
lost  caste  with  the  administration. 

Great  and  small  alike  were  made  to  suffer  from  the  President's  dis- 
pleasure. All  this  helped  to  widen  the  breach  in  the  Democratic 
ranks,  and  it  not  only  tended  to  inspire  the  Republicans  with  unflag- 
ging enthusiasm,  but  almost  daily  brought  them  new  recruits. 

In  the  autumn  of  1859,  only  six  wreeks  before  the  meeting  of  the 
36th  Congress,  an  event  occurred  that  had  consequences  singularly 
out  of  proportion  to  its  importance.  This  was  John  Brown's  raid  on 
Harper's  Ferry,  on  the  17th  of  October.  Brown  was  a  man  of  little 
education,  but  of  stern  principles  and  inflexible  courage,  who  had 
gone  to  Kansas  in  1855,  wrhere  he  became  a  terror  to  the  slaveholders 
on  the  Missouri  border.  He  was  no  politician,  and  as  an  Abolitionist 
he  was  a  disciple  of  Nat  Turner,  rather  than  of  Garrison  and  Phillips. 
When  he  emigrated  to  Kansas  he  went  not  to  settle,  but  to  fight,  and 
he  found  plenty  of  fighting  without  going  far  out  of  his  way  to  seek 


ROBERT    J.    WALKER. 


DEVELOPMENT   AND    GROWTH   OF   THE   PARTY.  43 

it.  Old  as  he  was,  he  met  the  Missourians  with  extraordinary  prow- 
ess, and  worsted  them  in  many  a  fierce  encounter.  When  the  Kansas 
conflict  was  ended  Captain  Brown  was  not  yet  satisfied.  He  was  not 
a  Eepublican  and  distrusted  the  Republican  leaders.  "  Republicans 
of  1858,"  he  said,  "  will  be  the  Democrats  of  1860."  He  thought  that 
Republican  success  in  the  ensuing  Presidential  election  would  be  a 
serious  check  to  the  cause  he  had  at  heart,  that  the  people  would  be 
deceived,  that  the  Republicans  would  be  as  conservative  of  slavery 
as  the  Democrats.  For  the  enslaved  black  he  saw  no  hope  in  the  fu- 
ture, except  by  force  of  arms.  Believing  that  the  Lord  directed  him 
in  visions  what  to  do,  it  was  easy  for  him  to  conceive  that  he  was  di- 
vinely commissioned  not  only  to  resist  the  extension  of  slavery,  but 
to  free  four  millions  of  bondmen.  Trusting  in  his  divine  commission, 
he  projected  the  enterprise  which  startled  and  astounded  the  country, 

and  in  the  end  brought  about  the  achievement 
for  which  he  so  ardently  longed. 

The  contemplated  crusade  was  arranged 
with  great  deliberation  and  consummate  abil- 
ity, considering  the  paucity  of  means  with 
which  it  wras  to  be  started.  The  entire  force 
with  which  Brown  made  his  attack  upon  Har- 
per's Ferry  consisted  of  seventeen  white  men 
and  five  negroes.  The  night  of  the  24th  of  Oc- 
tober \vas  originally  fixed  upon  for  the  first 
blow  against  slavery  in  Virginia,  but  suspect- 
ing that  one  of  his  party  was  a  traitor,  he  re- 
solved that  he  must  strike  prematurely,  or  not 
JOHN  BROWN.  at  all.  On  Saturday,  the  15th,  a  plan  of  opera- 

tions was  discussed,  and  unanimously  ap- 
proved the  next  evening.  That  night  this  extraordinary  army 
entered  Harper's  Ferry  without  creating  alarm,  and  took  pos- 
session of  the  armory  buildings  belonging  to  the  United  States, 
which  were  guarded  by  only  three  watchmen.  These  were  seized 
and  locked  up  in  the  guard  house.  Then  the  watchman  at  the 
Potomac  Bridge  was  captured  and  secured.  At  a  quarter  past 
one  the  western  train  on  the  Baltimore  &  Ohio  Railroad  arrived,  and 
found  the  bridge  guarded  by  armed  men.  Almost  simultaneously 
writh  the  detention  of  the  train  the  house  of  Colonel  Lewis  W.  Wash- 
ington was  visited  by  Brown's  men,  under  Captain  Stevens,  who 
seized  his  arms  and  horses,  and  liberated  his  slaves.  Every  male  citi- 
zen who  ventured  into  the  street  during  the  rest  of  the  night  was  cap- 
tured and  confined  in  the  armory,  until  the  number  of  prisoners  was 
between  40  and  50.  One  of  the  workmen  asked  by  what  authoritv  the 


44 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 


arsenal  had  been  seized,  and  was  told,  "  By  the  authority  of  Almighty 
God."  Every  workman  who  approached  the  armory,  as  day  dawned, 
was  seized  and  imprisoned.  By  8  o'clock  the  number  of  prisoners  ex- 
ceeded GO.  Soon  after  daybreak  the  fight  began,  and  a  grocer  named 
Boerly  was  killed  by  the  return  fire  from  the  army  of  occupation. 
Soon  afterward  one  of  Brown's  sons,  Walter,  was  mortally  wounded 
by  a  shot  fired  by  some  Virginians,  wrho  had  obtained  possession  of  a 
room  overlooking  the  armory  gates.  The  alarm  was  spread  over  the 
surrounding  country,  and  at  noon  a  militia  force,  consisting  of  100 


VIEW  OF  HARPER'S  FERRY. 

men,  arrived  from  Charlestown,  the  county  seat,  and  were  so  disposed 
as  to  command  every  available  exit  from  the  armory.  The  attacking 
force  was  rapidly  augmented  and  the  fight  was  continued,  another  of 
Brown's  sons,  Oliver,  meeting  the  fate  of  his  brother  earlier  in  the 
day.  The  assailants  being  in  overwhelming  force,  Brown  retreated 
to  the  engine-house,  where  he  succeeded  in  repulsing  them,  with  a 
loss  to  the  Virginians  of  two  killed  and  six  wounded.  Night  found 
Brown's  force  only  three  unwounded  whites  besides  himself.  Eight 
of  his  men  were  already  dead,  another  was  dying,  two  were  captives 


DEVELOPMENT   AND   GROWTH   OF   THE   PARTY.  45 

mortally  wounded,  and  one  was  a  prisoner  unhurt.  A  party,  sent  out 
to  capture  slave-holders  and  liberate  slaves  early  in  the  day,  was  ab- 
sent. They  fled  during  the  night  through  Maryland  into  Pennsyl- 
vania, but  most  of  them  were  ultimately  taken.  It  was  not  till  the  next 
morning  that  the  engine-house  was  captured  by  a  force  of  United 
States  marines,  two  of  the  marines  being  wounded.  Brown  was 
struck  in  the  face  by  a  saber,  and  knocked  down.  After  he  fell  the  old 
man  received  two  bayonet  thrusts  at  the  hands  of  an  infuriated  sol- 
dier. Brown  and  the  rest  of  his  little  band,  who  fell  into  the  hands 
of  the  Virginians,  were  tried  and  executed  at  the  town  of  Charles- 
town,  all  of  them  djdng  with  calm  and  unflinching  courage.  It  was  a 
mad  scheme,  with  a  tragic  ending,  but  it  has  been  immortalized  in 
song  and  story  in  every  land  where  the  spirit  of  liberty  is  cherished. 

John  Brown's  raid  on  Harper's  Ferry,  doomed  to  failure  from  its 
inception,  as  any  one  not  blinded  by  a  fanaticism  that  has  no  mis- 
givings might  have  foreseen,  was  in  consequence  of  the  events  that 
were  its  immediate  outcome  the  prelude  to  the  civil  war.  Henry  A. 
Wise  was  Governor  of  Virginia.  He  was  a  man  of  fine  talents  and 
ardent  temperament,  with  much  of  the  reckless  bravado  and  arrogant 
impulsiveness  that  marked  the  Pro-Slavery  leaders  of  the  epoch. 
Governor  Wise  was  eager  to  connect  the  Northern  people  and  the 
Kepublican  party  with  John  Brown's  acts  and  purposes.  In  attempt- 
ing this  he  gave  official  expression  to  fears  and  forebodings  that  had 
no  foundation  in  fact.  He  affected  to  see  in  Brown  and  his  handful  of 
followers  only  the  advance  guard  of  other  invasions,  for  the  purpose 
of  inciting  and  promoting  servile  insurrections,  and  even  of  rescuing 
the  captured  Harper's  Ferry  raiders  from  the  custody  of  Virginia. 
He  alleged  that  organizations  existed  in  some  of  the  Free  States 
having  these  objects  in  view,  and  he  addressed  a  letter  to  President 
Buchanan  in  which  he  declared  that  "  if  another  invasion  should  as- 
sail the  State  of  Virginia,  he  should  pursue  the  invaders  into  any 
territory,  and  punish  them  wherever  they  could  be  reached  by  arms." 
Copies  of  this  letter  were  sent  to  Governor  Chase,  of  Ohio,  and  other 
Northern  governors,  writh  a  repetition  of  his  purpose  to  pursue  in- 
vaders into  adjoining  States.  This  arrogant  action  was  received  in 
the  usual  manner  in  the  North — with  truckling  assent  and  humility 
by  the  Democrats,  and  with  indignant  scorn  by  the  Republicans.  Gov- 
ernor Packer,  of  Pennsylvania,  made  haste  to  offer  ten  thousand  men 
for  service  at  the  call  of  Virginia,  but  Governor  Chase,  of  Ohio, 
promptly  informed  Governor  Wise  that  the  people  of  that  State  would 
not  consent  "  to  the  invasion  of  her  territory  by  armed  bodies  from 
other  States,  even  for  the  purpose  of  pursuing  and  arresting  fugitives 
from  justice."  As  no  such  organizations  as  those  complained  of  by 


46  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

Governor  Wise  existed  anywhere  in  the  North,  nothing  came  of  the 
matter,  except  the  irritation  of  feeling  it  was  intended  to  provoke, 
with  corresponding  irritation  and  agitation  in  the  South.  There  is 
no  reason  to  believe  that  the  fear  and  demoralization  that  swept  over 
the  Slave  States,  after  Brown's  futile  foray  on  Harper's  Ferry,  was 
feigned.  The  specter  of  a  slave  insurrection,  or  even  a  series  of  slave 
insurrections,  promoted  by  Northern  Abolitionists,  had  become  a 
portent  of  imminent  danger  to  the  Southern  people.  The  leaders  of 
public  opinion  in  the  South  constantly  sought  to  misdirect  and  mis- 
lead them.  According  to  the  slaveholding  extremists,  the  Wilniot 
Proviso  was  aimed  at  slavery  in  the  same  spirit  as  had  been  John 
Brown's  fantastic  provisional  constitution.  In  the  end,  the  South 
looked  upon  the  teachings  of  Seward  as  identical  with  those  of  Gerrit 
Smith,  and  could  see  no  difference  between  the  mad  freak  of  John 
Brown  and  the  supposed  purposes  of  the  "  Black  Republicans." 

The  effort  to  hold  the  Republican  party  responsible  for  the  John 
Brown  raid  was  a  political  device  of  Senator  Mason,  of  Virginia.  His 
defiant  and  autocratic  manner  well  fitted  him  for  the  part  of  its  ac- 
cuser, if  the  purpose  of  the  accusation  was  to  strengthen  it  with  the 
Northern  people.  Early  in  the  36th  Congress  Mr.  Mason  moved  a 
Committee  of  the  Senate  to  investigate  the  causes  leading  up  to  the 
raid  on  Harper's  Ferry.  The  motion  was  opposed  by  Trumbull,  of 
Illinois,  who  moved  that  a  raid  from  Missouri  into  Kansas  should  be 
included  in  the  investigation,  and  it  was  mercilessly  ridiculed  by 
Senator  Hale,  of  New  Hampshire,  but  it  prevailed,  and  the  committee 
was  appointed.  An  incident  of  the  investigation  was  the  arrest  of 
Frank  B.  Sanborn,  of  Concord,  Massachusetts,  for  refusing  to  go  to 
Washington  to  testify  before  the  Senate  Committee  touching  his 
knowledge  of  the  raid.  Sanborn  was  seized  by  persons  deputed  by 
the  Sergeant-at-Arms  of  the  Senate,  forced  into  a  carriage  and  hand- 
cuffed, but  his  Concord  neighbors  interfered,  invoking  the  assistance 
of  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  and  his  release  was  ordered.  Sanborn  after- 
ward presented  a  memorial  to  the  Senate  through  Mr.  Sumner,  where- 
upon Mr.  Mason  moved  that  the  memorial  be  rejected.  There  was  no 
love  lost  between  the  Senator  from  Massachusetts  and  the  Senator 
from  Virginia,  and  the  incident  led  to  one  of  those  sulphurous  out- 
bursts for  which  Sumner  had  become  famous.  "  The  Senator  moves," 
he  said,  "  .  .  .  .  that  the  memorial  be  rejected ;  and  he  makes  this 
unaccustomed  motion  with  a  view  to  establish  a  precedent  in  such  a 
case.  I  feel  it  my  duty  to  establish  a  precedent  in  such  a  case  by  en- 
tering an  open,  unequivocal  protest  against  such  an  attempt.  Sir, 
an  ancient  poet  said  of  a  judge  in  hell  that  he  punished  first  and  heard 
afterward — Castif/atquc  audltquc — and  permit  me  to  say  that  the 


DEVELOPMENT  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PARTY. 


47 


Senator  from  Virginia,  on  this  occasion,  takes  a  precedent  from  that 
Court."  The  protest  of  the  Republican  party  against  Senator  Mason's 
effort  to  fix  the  odium  of  John  Brown's  raid  upon  it  was  equally  open 
and  unequivocal.  The  challenged  party  declined  to  stand  on  the  de- 
fensive. It  attempted  no  exculpation  from  the  idle  imputation. 
Prominent  Republicans  frankly  expressed  their  pity  for  the  brave  old 
man  who  had  sacrificed  his  life  for  his  principles,  and  the  party,  in- 
stead of  being  weakened  by  an  episode  that  was  unforeseen  by  any 
of  its  leaders,  grew  stronger  from  the  effort  of  the  South  to  make  the 
unfortunate  occurrence  a  political  issue.  The  Senate  Committee 
failed  to  trace  the  origin  of  the  project  beyond  the  narrow  circle  of 
John  Brown's  immediate  associates,  and  it  was  not  felt  that  any  dis- 
avowal of  Republican  sympathy  was  required  because  on  the  day  of 
Brown's  execution  bells  were  tolled, 
and  "  prayers  offered  up  for  him 
as  if  he  were  a  martyr." 

The  action  of  the  Senate  in  trying 
to  fix  the  responsibility  for  the  John 
Brown  raid  upon  the  Republican 
party  was  supplemented  by  an  at- 
tempt in  the  House  to  fasten  a 
charge  of  inciting  insurrection  upon 
the  two  Republicans  who  were  voted 
for  for  the  Speakership  on  the  first 
ballot — John  Sherman  and  Galusha 
A.  Grow.  Both  Sherman  and  Grow 
had  indorsed  a  book  called  "  The  Im- 
pending Crisis,"  with  a  compendium 
that  was  even  less  startling  than 
the  book  itself.  The  book  was  com- 
piled by  Hinton  R.  Helper,  and  it 

was,  in  fact,  little  more  than  a  compilation  of  dry  statistics,  but  it  gave 
great  offense  to  the  South.  Sherman  indorsed  it  without  reading  it, 
and  then  forgot  all  about  the  indorsement.  This  act  was  little  short  of 
a  crime  in  the  eyes  of  Southern  statesmen,  and  after  Sherman  and 
Grow  were  voted  for  for  Speaker,  Mr.  Clark,  of  Missouri,  offered  a 
resolution  reciting  the  fact  of  the  indorsement  of  Helper's  book  by  the 
two  Republican  culprits,  and  declaring  that  "  its  doctrines  and  senti- 
ments "  were  "  insurrectionary  and  hostile  to  the  domestic  peace  and 
tranquillity  of  the  country,  and  that  no  member  of  this  House,  who 
had  indorsed  and  recommended  it,  or  the  Compend  from  it,  is  fit 
to  be  Speaker  of  the  House."  No  poor  book  ever  got  a  better 
advertisement,  for,  impervious  to  ridicule,  the  excited  South- 


•'. 


JOHN    SHERMAN. 


48  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

erners  kept  up  their  attacks  upon  it  throughout  the  prolonged 
contest  over  the  Speakership.  The  only  comfort  they  obtained  from 
the  gratuitous  advertisement  of  Helper's  dull  book  was  that  the  Black 
Republican  who  was  finally  elected  was  not  one  of  the  men  who  had 
indorsed  it,  and  that  both  these  "  would  have  to  roost  lower  the  rest 
of  their  lives."  In  the  effort  to  rebuke  a  poor  book  the  House  finally 
contented  itself  with  a  poor  Speaker.  In  the  House,  as  in  the  Senate, 
the  only  effect  of  the  attempts  to  arraign  the  Kepublican  party  was 
to  combine  wavering  voters  in  the  Free  States  in  support  of  Kepubli- 
can doctrines,  and  incidentally  to  widen  the  breach  between  Douglas 
and  the  South,  and  hasten  the  disruption  of  the  Democratic  party. 
The  bitterness  of  the  South  only  served  to  consolidate  the  North,  and 
to  pave  the  way  for  the  Republican  triumph  of  1860. 


IV. 


THE  SECOND  REPUBLICAN  CONVENTION. 

Nominations  in  1860 — The  Charleston  Convention — Republican  Or- 
ganization Complete — The  Chicago  Convention — William  H. 
Seward — Signs  of  Opposition  to  His  Candidature — The  Candi- 
dates— Enthusiasm  of  the  New  York  Delegation — Weed  and 
Evarts — The  Republican  Wigwam — Organization  of  the  Con- 
vention— The  Platform — Naming  the  Candidates — The  Ballots — 
Analysis  of  the  Vote — Lincoln  Nominated — Causes  of  Seward?s 
Defeat — Abraham  Lincoln — Hannibal  Hainlin— Enthusiastic 
Reception  of  the  Ticket. 

HEN  the  National  Republican  Convention  of  i860  met  at 
Chicago  on  the  16th  of  May  the  Democratic  party  was  in 
the  throes  of  dissolution.  The  Democratic  Convention  had 
met  at  Charleston  on  the  23d  of  April,  and  adjourned  on 
the  3d  of  May  to  meet  in  Baltimore  on  the  18th  of  June.  The  Con- 
vention at  Charleston  neither  nomi- 
nated a  candidate  nor  adopted  an 
acceptable  platform,  and  before  the 
adjournment  the  breach  between 
the  Northern  and  Southern  wrings  of 
the  Democracy  was  complete.  The 
Convention  organized  by  the  election 
of  Caleb  Gushing,  of  Massachusetts, 
as  its  President.  Mr.  Gushing 
had  been  elected  to  Congress  as  a 
Whig  as  early  as  1834,  and  was 
an  active  participant  on  the  Anti- 
Slavery  side  of  the  discussions 
in  the  House.  In  the  quarrel  be- 
tween President  Tyler  and  Mr.  Clay 
he  adhered  to  the  administration, 
and  after  being  sent  as  Commissioner  to  China  in  1843,  he  joined 
the  Democracy,  and  was  made  brigadier-general  by  President  Polk  in 
the  war  with  Mexico.  He  subsequently  served  as  attorney-general 
under  President  Pierce.  As  a  Democrat  he  became  a  partisan  of  the 
extreme  State-rights  school,  and  not  even  the  services  of  Jefferson 
Davis  were  of  greater  value  to  the  Pro-Slavery  Democracy.  His 


CALEB   GUSHING. 


50  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

selection  to  preside  over  the  Charleston  Convention  was  in  itself  a 
triumph  for  the  Southern  Democracy,  but  apart  from  a  sympathetic 
presiding  officer,  the  South  gained  an  advantage  even  greater  from 
the  support  accorded  it  by  the  California  and  Oregon  delegations  in 
constituting  the  Committee  on  Resolutions.  In  1800  the  number  of 
States  in  the  Union  was  33;  of  these  18  were  Free  and  15  Slave  States. 
The  support  of  the  Pacific  States  gave  the  South  a  majority  of  one  in 
committee.  The  majority  of  the  committee  accordingly  reported  a 
platform  taking  the  most  advanced  ground  ever  assumed  by  the 
South.  It  contained  an  explicit  assertion  of  the  right  of  citizens  to 
settle  in  the  Territories,  with  their  slaves — "  a  right  not  to  be  de- 
stroyed or  impaired  by  Congressional  or  Territorial  legislation,"  and 
the  further  declaration  that  it  was  the  duty  of  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment, when  necessary,  "  to  protect  slavery  in  the  Territories,  and 
wherever  else  its  constitutional  authority  extends." 

The  supporters  of  Mr.  Douglas  saw  that  they  would  be  hopelessly 
destroyed  in  the  North  if  they  consented  to  these  extreme  demands 
of  the  South,  and  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  Democratic 
party  the  Northern  delegates  in  a  National  Convention  refused  to 
submit  to  Southern  dictation.  A  substitute  was  accordingly  reported 
by  the  minority,  that  declared  that  "  inasmuch  as  differences  of  opin- 
ion exist  in  the  Democratic  party  as  to  the  nature  and  extent  of  the 
powers  and  duties  of  a  Territorial  Legislature,  and  as  to  the  powers 
and  duties  of  Congress  under  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
over  the  institution  of  slavery  within  the  Territories,  the  Democratic 
party  will  abide  by  the  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  upon  questions  of  constitutional  law."  This  was  a  temporizing 
expedient,  cunningly  contrived,  but  evasive.  The  Southern  delegates 
promptly  and  sternly  refused  to  accept  the  compromise.  The  Douglas 
men,  on  the  other  hand,  would  not  yield  In  the  Convention  the  mi- 
nority platform  was  substituted  for  that  of  the  majority  by  a  vote  of 
165  to  138.  Although  fairly  outvoted,  the  Southern  delegates  refused 
to  abide  by  the  decision,  and  seven  States — Louisiana,  Alabama, 
South  Carolina,  Mississippi,  Florida,  Texas,  and  Arkansas — withdrew 
from  the  Convention,  and  organized  a  separate  body.  This  left  the 
supporters  of  Douglas  in  control  of  the  regular  Convention,  but  the  ac- 
ceptance of  the  two-thirds  rule  in  a  full  Convention  rendered  the 
nomination  of  Douglas,  even  with  a  large  part,  of  the  South  elimi- 
nated, impossible.  It  wras  finally  determined  to  fill  vacancies  occa- 
sioned by  the  withdrawal  of  delegates  from  the  South,  and  the  ad- 
journment to  Baltimore  was  taken  to  allowr  this  to  be  done.  At 
Baltimore  there  was  a  second  secession,  including  the  withdrawal  of 
Mr.  Gushing,  the  President,  whose  place  was  then  taken  by  Governor 


THE   SECOND   REPUBLICAN   CONVENTION.  51 

Tod,  of  Ohio.  Stephen  A.  Douglas  was  then  nominated  for  President 
and  Benjamin  Fitzpatrick,  of  Alabama,  for  Vice-President.  Mr. 
Fitzpatrick  declined  the  nomination,  and  Herschel  V.  Johnson,  of 
Georgia,  was  afterward  substituted  by  the  National  Committee.  The 
seceders  from  the  Convention  at  Baltimore  subsequently  met  and 
nominated  John  C.  Breckinridge,  of  Kentucky,  for  President,  and 
Joseph  Lane,  of  Oregon,  for  Vice-President.  This  Convention  adopted 
the  platform  reported  by  the  majority  of  the  Committee  on  Resolu- 
tions of  the  Charleston  Convention.  The  nominations  and  platform 
of  the  seceding  Convention  at  Baltimore  were  accepted  by  the  seced- 
ing Convention  at  Richmond  the  same  day,  the  28th  of  June.  Mean- 
time another  convention  had  been  held  at  Baltimore  by  the  Constitu- 
tional Union  party,  as  it  called  itself,  at  which  John  Bell,  of  Tennes- 
see, was  nominated  for  President,  and  Edward  Everett,  of  Massachu- 
setts, for  Vice-President.  Thus  there  were  three  parties  and  three 
tickets  arrayed  against  the  Republicans  and  their  candidates. 

The  disrupted  Charleston  Convention  had  adjourned  to  meet  at 
Baltimore  a  fortnight,  and  the  nomination  of  Bell  and  Everett  had 
been  made  a  week  before  the  meeting  of  the  Chicago  Convention. 
This  second  Republican  National  Convention  was  essentially  different 
from  that  which  had  nominated  Fremont  at  Philadelphia  four  years 
before.  In  1856  the  delegates  were  self-appointed  and  the  party  with- 
out organization  or  cohesion.  In  1860  its  organization  was  perfected 
in  every  Northern  State,  and  the  delegates  wrere  chosen  as  fit  embodi- 
ments of  the  principles  and  purposes  of  the  party.  While  the  Demo- 
crats wrere  divided  and  discordant,  the  Republicans  were  united  and 
confident.  They  had  carried  every  Northern  State  in  1859,  except 
California,  Oregon,  New  York,  and  Rhode  Island.  In  Oregon  the  ad- 
verse majority  was  only  59.  In  New  York  the  Republican  vote  was 
less  than  two  thousand  short  of  an  absolute  majority  over  the  Demo- 
crats and  the  third  party  men.  Rhode  Island  had  only  been  carried 
by  a  fusion  of  the  entire  opposition.  Since  these  elections  the  party 
had  gained  in  confidence  and  strength,  and  was  hopeful  of  carrying 
every  Free  State  in  the  ensuing  Presidential  election.  Like  the  Phila- 
delphia Convention  of  four  years  before,  the  Chicago  Convention  was 
made  up  in  great  part  of  young  men,  a  large  proportion  of  whom  were 
afterward  prominent  in  public  life.  Mr.  Blaine  says  that  not  fewer 
than  sixty  of  them,  till  then  unknown  beyond  their  districts,  were 
afterward  sent  to  Congress;  many  became  Governors  of  their  States, 
and  many  others  were  distinguished  as  soldiers  in  the  civil  war  that 
was  to  follow  the  Republican  triumph.  All  the  Free  States  were  fully 
represented  in  the  Convention,  with  delegates  from  six  Slave  States — 
Delaware,  Maryland,  Virginia,  Kentucky,  Missouri,  and  Texas.  The 


52 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 


whole  number  of  votes  represented  in  the  Convention  was  465,  the 
number  necessary  to  a  choice  being  233. 

The  one  man  who  had  done  more  than  any  other  to  organize,  con- 
solidate, and  inspire  the  Republican  party  was  William  H.  Seward, 
of  New  York.  For  fully  two  years  before  the  meeting  of  the  Conven- 
tion the  impression  prevailed  among  the  people  that  his  nomination 
for  President  was  a  foregone  conclusion.  Fully  two-thirds  of  the  dele- 
gates chosen  to  the  Convention  preferred  him  as  the  Republican  can- 
didate, and  a  clear  majority  went  to  Chicago  expecting  to  vote  for  him. 
His  high  character,  his  eminent  ability,  and  the  importance  and  mag- 
nitude of  his  work  were  everywhere  conceded.  When  the  Convention 

met  there  was  no  powerful  candi- 
date to  oppose  him,  and  it  was  not 
until  the  delegates  came  face  to 
face  that  his  availability  began  to 
be  a  question.  It  was  soon  found, 
however,  that  he  was  confronted 
with  obstacles  that  would  prove 
formidable,  if  not  insuperable. 
Timid  men  feared  that  his  radi- 
calism would  make  Mr.  Seward 
weak  where  a  candidate  of  fewer 
antagonisms  might  be  strong.  In 
the  Convention  was  a  delegate 
from  Oregon,  who  lived  in  New 
York,  and  had  sought  and  obtain- 
ed the  right  to  represent  that  far 
distant  Statewith  a  viewto  oppos- 
ing Seward's  nomination.  This  man 
was  Horace  Greeley.  It  was  not 
known  at  the  time  that  the  old  firm 

of  Seward,  Weed,  and  Greeley  had  been  dissolved.  If  this  had  been 
known  it  is  doubtful  if  Greeley's  hostility  to  Seward  would  have  been 
so  effective  as  it  proved,  but  apart  from  Greeley's  opposition  still  more 
powerful  influences  were  exerted  against  Seward  from  the  two  States 
of  Indiana  and  Pennsylvania.  In  Indiana  Henry  S.  Lane  had  just  been 
nominated  for  Governor,  with  Oliver  P.  Morton,  then  not  known  be- 
yond his  State,  for  Lieutenant-Governor.  It  was  understood  that  if 
the  Republicans  carried  the  State,  Lane  would  be  sent  to  the  United 
States  Senate,  and  Morton  would  become  Governor.  Both  Lane  and 
Morton  believed  that  Seward's  nomination  meant  their  own  defeat 
in  their  States.  In  Pennsylvania  Andrew  G.  Curtin  had  been  nomi- 
nated for  Governor  by  a  People's  State  Convention,  the  party  not 


WILLIAM    H.    SEWARD. 


THE   SECOND   REPUBLICAN    CONVENTION.  53 

being  bold  enough  to  assume  the  name  of  Republican.  In  this  Peo- 
ple's party  the  "  American  "  element  continued  to  be  powerful.  The 
"  American  "  organization  was  still  maintained  in  Philadelphia,  and 
in  a  number  of  the  counties  of  the  State.  Without  its  aid  Curtin's 
success  was  impossible.  In  Indiana  the  "  American  "  element  was 
strong  also,  and  its  support  was  equally  necessary  to  the  election  of 
Lane  and  Morton.  As  a  result  of  these  conditions,  the  defeat  of 
Seward  and  the  nomination  of  Lincoln  were  brought  about  by  two 
men  who  believed,  not  without  reason,  that  Seward's  nomination 
meant  a  Democratic  victory  in  their  States — Henry  S.  Lane,  of  Indi- 
ana, and  Andrew  G.  Curt  in,  of  Pennsylvania. 

In  spite  of  the  hostility  of  Greeley  and  the  antagonistic  attitude  of 
Indiana  and  Pennsylvania,  Seward's  strength  was  not  easily  broken. 
As  late  as  the  night  of  the  IGth  Mr.  Greeley  telegraphed  to  the  N>w 
York  Tribune  that  the  opposition  to  Governor  Seward  was  unable  to 
concentrate  on  a  candidate,  and  that  he  would  be  nominated.  Gree- 
k's choice  was  Edward  Bates,  of  Missouri — an  old  Whig,  who 
had  been  a  member  of  the  convention  that  framed  the  constitution 
of  that  State  in  1820,  and  joined  the  Republicans  because  of  the  re- 
peal of  the  Missouri  Compromise.  He  was  backed  by  a  Missouri  dele- 
gation, and  had  the  support  of  the  venerable  Francis  P.  Blair  and  his 
son,  Montgomery  Blair.  His  strength  was  confined  to  the  border 
States,  none  of  which  the  Republicans  could  hope  to  carry.  A  part  of 
the  Ohio  delegation  affected  to  want  the  nomination  of  Salmon  P. 
Chase;  Pennsylvania  had  an  ostensible  candidate  in  Simon  Cameron; 
New  Jersey  supported  William  L.  Dayton,  and  Vermont  presented 
the  name  of  Jacob  Collamer.  Another  candidate,  besides  Chase,  who 
was  without  the  support  of  a  united  delegation,  was  John 
McLean,  of  Ohio.  Abraham  Lincoln,  of  Illinois,  was  the  only  candi- 
date whose  strength  was  unforeseen.  Lincoln  had  been  named  as  the 
choice  of  the  Illinois  Republicans  by  the  State  Convention  only  a 
few  days  before  the  meeting  of  the  National  Convention.  This  nomi- 
nation was  a  surprise  even  to  the  Convention  that  made  it.  The 
proposition  came  from  Richard  J.  Oglesby,  in  an  eloquent  speech,  and 
it  was  received  with  an  enthusiasm  that  was  as  boisterous  as  it  was 
spontaneous.  A  delegation  was  chosen  that  was  remarkable  for  its 
ability,  and  admirably  fitted  for  the  difficult  task  assigned  to  it.  But 
it  was  not  necessarily  a  Lincoln  delegation  to  a  finish.  Eight  of  the 
twenty-two  delegates  would  gladly  have  supported  Seward — would, 
perhaps,  have  preferred  him  to  Lincoln.  Even  in  Chicago,  where  the 
enthusiasm  for  Lincoln  was  very  great,  Seward's  popularity  seemed 
a  match  for  it.  No  candidate  for  the  Presidency  ever  had  a  delegation 
from  his  own  State  more  devoted  to  his  interests  than  was  the  New 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 


York  delegation  in  support  of  Mr.  Seward  in  1860.  It  had  come  to 
Chicago  to  work  with  a  united  will,  and  to  vote  as  a  unit.  Behind  it 
was  an  enthusiastic  following  that  was  so  demonstrative  that  it 
seemed  to  be  celebrating  a  victory  already  achieved.  At  the  Seward 
headquarters  at  the  Richmond  House  was  a  palpitating  mass  of  Se- 
ward enthusiasts,  intolerant  of  any  name  but  that  of  their  favorite. 
These  carried  their  demonstrations  to  excess.  They  invaded  the  quar- 
ters of  the  delegations  from  other  States,  and  proclaimed  the  name 
of  their  candidate  everywhere.  Seward  badges  were  seen  in  every 
crowd.  The  New  York  delegation  was  scarcely  behind  the  mobs  of 
tumultuous  Seward  admirers  in  ostentatious  display.  Some  of  the 
delegates  talked  without  prudence  of  the  money  New  York  would 
contribute  to  the  campaign.  The  delegates  marched  in  procession 
to  the  Convention  each  day,  with  music  and  banners.  More  potential 

than  this  outward  show  were  the  quiet  ap- 
peals of  Mr.  Seward's  two  most  eloquent 
champions — Thurlow  Weed  and  William  M. 
Evarts.  In  every  delegation  their  pleadings 
for  their  candidate  were  heard  and  felt. 
Weed  was  Seward's  life-long  friend.  In  pri- 
vate conversation  he  was  the  most  persua- 
sive of  men.  He  spoke  for  Seward  with  an 
earnestness  that  was  weighted  with  his  af- 
fection for  the  man,  and  a  force  that  was  irre- 
sistible in  the  presentation  of  the  character, 
the  gifts,  and  the  services  of  the  statesman. 
Evarts  was  as  eloquent  as  Weed  was  persua- 
sive. WTherever  Evarts  went  men  followed 

him,  drawn  by  the  charm  of  his  oratory — even  men  who  were  deter- 
mined not  to  accept  his  candidate.  Never  before  had  a  great  statesman 
so  impassioned  a  champion.  Evarts  spoke  as  a  friend,  as  a  patriot  for 
the  Republic,  for  the  party  that  could  save  it,  and  for  the  man  who 
had  founded  the  party  and  was  best  fitted  to  lead  it.  But  no  appeal, 
however  persuasive,  no  argument  however  eloquent,  was  of  avail  in  a 
crisis  in  which  eminent  services  counted  for  less  than  the  ability  to 
carry  four  doubtful  States,  in  which  the  Republican  party  was  scarce- 
ly Republican  at  heart — States  in  which  the  Republican  leaders,  who 
were  not  "  Know-Nothings,"  were  still  Whigs  in  sympathy,  without 
the  courage  to  call  themselves  Republicans.  These  men  had  their 
missionaries,  as  Seward  had  Weed  and  Evarts,  but  with  demands  that 
could  not  be  easily  disregarded.  With  Lane  was  John  D.  Defrees,  the 
chairman  of  his  State  Committee,  and  with  Curtin  was  Alexander  K. 
McClure,  who  was  to  manage  the  campaign  in  Pennsylvania.  Lin- 


THE   SECOND    REPUBLICAN    CONVENTION. 


55 


coin's  biographers,  Nicolay  and  Hay,  deny  that  the  credit  of  Lincoln's 
nomination  belongs  to  these  men,  and  assert  that  "  Lincoln  was  not 
chosen  by  intrigue,  but  through  political  necessity."  It  has  never 
been  claimed  that  it  was  "  intrigue  "  that  nominated  Lincoln,  but  the 
"  political  necessity  "  that  defeated  Seward  wras  only  another  name 
for  the  political  interests  that  were  opposed  to  his  nomination.  Mr. 
McClure,  in  his  "  Lincoln  and  Men  of  War  Times,"  has  stated  the  mat- 
ter with  more  precision.  "There  could  be  no  question  as  to  the  sincerity 
of  the  Republican  candidates  for  Governor  in  the  two  pivotal  States 


THE   REPUBLICAN    WIGWAM. 


when  they  declared  that  a  particular  nomination  would  doom  them 
to  defeat,"  he  says,  "  and  it  was  Andrew  G.  Curtin  and  Henry  S.  Lane 
whose  earnest  admonitions  to  the  delegates  at  Chicago  compelled 
a  Seward  Convention  to  halt  in  its  purpose  and  set  him  aside,  with  all 
his  pre-eminent  qualifications  and  with  all  the  enthusiastic  devotion 
of  his  party  to  him." 

The  Chicago  of  1860  had  no  building  sufficiently  commodious  for  a 
great  National  Convention.  A  temporary  frame  structure,  for  which 
it  was  claimed  that  it  was  capable  of  seating  ten  thousand  persons, 
was  accordingly  designed  and  erected  for  the  occasion.  This  building 


56  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

was  given  the  name  of  the  "  Republican  Wigwam."  It  turned  out  to 
be  admirably  fitted  for  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  intended.  Its 
acoustic  qualities  were  perfect.  Every  part  of  the  great  auditorium 
was  visible  from  every  part.  Every  celebrity  could  be  seen,  every 
speech  could  be  heard.  There  were  separate  doors  for  the  ingress 
and  egress  of  spectators  and  delegates.  Among  the  delegates  was  a 
large  number  of  men  of  national  reputation,  most  of  them  unknown 
by  sight  to  the  vast  multitude  that  crowded  the  building.  It  was  soon 
found  that  the  crowd  was  easily  able  to  distinguish  the  chief  actors 
on  the  floor  of  the  Convention,  and  the  eminent  men  seated  on  the 
platform.  In  many  of  the  delegations  there  wras  a  noteworthy  blend- 
ing of  men  of  diverse  political  antecedents — anti-Slavery  Democrats, 
'Webster  Whigs,  and  now  and  then  a  pronounced  Abolitionist.  Mas- 
sachusetts sent  John  A.  Andrew  and  George  S.  Boutwell;  New  York, 
William  M.  Evarts  and  Preston  King;  Pennsylvania,  Thaddeus  Ste- 
vens and  Andrew  H.  Reeder;  Ohio,  Thomas  Corwin  and  Joshua  R. 
Giddings;  Illinois,  David  Davis  and  N.  B.  Judd;  and  Missouri,  Francis 
P.  Blair,  Jr.,  and  Carl  Schurz.  David  WTilmot,  of  Pennsylvania,  the 
Democratic  author  of  the  famous  Proviso,  was  made  temporary  chair- 
man of  the  Convention,  and  George  Aslmiun,  of  Massachusetts,  a  life- 
long adherent  of  Daniel  Webster,  its  permanent  president.  Both 
selections  were  received  with  satisfaction  by  the  Convention  and 
hearty  applause  from  the  galleries. 

The  first  day  of  the  Convention  was  devoted  to  the  work  of  organ- 
ization, and  the  usual  Committees  on  Credentials  and  Resolutions 
were  appointed.  There  were  no  contested  seats,  but  a  delegation 
claiming  to  represent  Texas  was  afterward  found  to  be  ineligible. 
The  Committee  on  Platform,  which  consisted  of  one  delegate  from 
each  State  and  Territory,  reported  on  the  evening  of  the  second  day. 
When  the  platform  was  read  it  was  received  with  tremendous  cheers, 
and  the  disposition  was  evinced  to  adopt  it  immediately  and  unani- 
mously. Mr.  Giddings,  of  Ohio,  always  insisting  upon  the  embodiment 
of  "  primal  truths,''  moved  to  amend  the  first  resolution  by  incor- 
porating in  it  the  phrases  from  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  de- 
claring "That  all  men  are  created  equal;  and  they  are  endowed  by 
their  Creator  with  certain  inalienable  rights;  that  among  these  are 
life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness;  that,  to  secure  these  rights, 
governments  are  instituted  among  men,  deriving  their  just  powers 
from  the  consent  of  the  governed,"  but  the  Convention  was  eager  to 
adopt  the  platform  without  change,  and  the  amendment  was  voted 
down.  This  so  grieved  the  anti-slavery  veteran  that  he  rose  and 
walked  out  of  the  Convention  Hall.  When  the  second  resolution  was 
reached  George  William  Curtis,  of  New  York,  renewed  Mr.  Giddings's 


THE   SECOND    REPUBLICAN    CONVENTION. 


57 


amendment,  and  supported  his  motion  with  a  burst  of  oratory  that 
carried  everything  before  it.  "  I  have  to  ask  this  Convention/'  he 
said,  "  whether  they  are  prepared  to  go  upon  the  record  before  the 
country  as  voting  down  the  words  of  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence? ...  I  rise  simply  to  ask  the  gentlemen  to  think  well  be- 
fore, upon  the  free  prairies  of  the  West,  in  the  summer  of  1860,  they 
dare  to  wince  and  quail  before  the  assertions  of  the  men  in  Phila- 
delphia in  1776;  before  they  dare  to  shrink  from  repeating  the  words 
that  these  great  men  enunciated."  The  amendment  was  adopted, 
and  Mr.  Giddings,  overjoyed  at  Curtis's  triumph,  returned  to  his  seat. 

The  platform  was  skillfully  framed.  It  denounced  disunion,  the 
reopening  of  the  slave  trade,  the  "  popular  sovereignty  "  and  non- 
intervention theories;  denied  the  authority  of  Congress,  of  a  Terri- 
torial Legislature,  or  of  individuals 
to  give  existence  to  slavery  in  any 
Territories  'of  the  United  States; 
opposed  any  change  in  the  natural- 
ization laws;  recommended  an  ad- 
justment of  import  duties  to  encour- 
age the  industrial  interests  of  the 
country,  and  advocated  the  im- 
mediate admission  of  Kansas  as  a 
Free  State,  free  homesteads,  and  a 
railroad  to  the  Pacific  Ocean.  The 
platform  as  a  whole  was  received 
with  shouts  of  applause,  such  as 
had  never  before  been  accorded  to 
the  declaration  of  principles  adopted 
by  a  National  Convention. 

When  the  Convention  met  on  the  third  day  everybody  knew  that 
the  balloting  wTould  soon  determine  the  fate  of  the  candidates.  The 
New  York  delegation  felt  assured  of  Mr.  Seward's  triumph,  and  the 
New  Yorkers  made  their  march  to  the  Wigwam  even  more  full  and 
imposing  than  on  the  two  previous  days.  The  display  proved  a  costly 
one  to  those  who  took  part  in  it.  While  they  were  parading  the 
streets,  with  banners  and  music,  the  partisans  of  Lincoln  were  quietly 
filling  the  building,  and  when  Seward's  friends  arrived  there  was  no 
space  left,  except  the  seats  reserved  for  the  delegates.  The  disap- 
pointment was  a  keen  one,  but  it  had  to  be  endured.  Within  the 
Wigwam  the  scene  was  one  that  has  never  been  adequately  described. 
Every  seat  was  filled.  Every  inch  of  standing  room  was  occupied. 
The  vast  throng  of  ten  thousand  living,  breathing  men  was  palpitat- 
ing with  suppressed  excitement  and  strained  expectation.  The  en- 


.JOSHUA   R.    GIDDINGS. 


58  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

trance  of  the  popular  favorites  was  watched  with  the  keenest  interest, 
and  each  in  turn  was  greeted  with  rousing  cheers  that  rose  and  fell 
in  blending  waves  of  sound.  During  the  opening  prayer  a  solemn 
hush  pervaded  the  great  audience.  Then  there  was  an  unexpected 
preliminary  wrangle,  that  tested  the  patience  of  delegates  and  spec- 
tators to  the  utmost.  But  at  last  everything  was  ready  for  the  pres- 
entation of  the  names  of  the  candidates.  The  ceremony  wras  exceed- 
ingly simple.  There  were  no  swelling  speeches,  like  those  that  formed 
dramatic  features  of  later  conventions — as  Robert.  G.  Ingersoll's 
speech  nominating  Blaine  at  Cincinnati  in  1870,  and  Roscoe  Conk- 
ling's  nominating  Grant  at  Chicago  in  1880.  A  simple  announce- 
ment, without  an  electrifying  prelude,  was  all  there  was  of  the  cere- 
mony in  1860.  "  I  take  the  liberty,"  said  Mr.  Evarts,  of  New  York, 
"  to  name  as  a  candidate  to  be  nominated  by  this  Convention  for  the 
office  of  President  of  the  United  States,  William  H.  Seward."  The 
announcement  was  received  with  a  roll  of  applause  that  completely 
filled  the  great  building.  "  I  desire,"  Mr.  Judd  then  said,  "  on  behalf 
of  the  delegation  from  Illinois,  to  put  in  nomination  as  a  candidate 
for  President  of  the  United  States,  Abraham  Lincoln."  Another  wave 
of  applause  swept  over  the  Wigwam.  Then  came  the  other  nomina- 
tions. Bates,  Chase,  Cameron,  Dayton,  Collamer,  and  McLean  were 
named,  each  name  being  received  with  cheers.  Although  caucusing 
had  been  kept  up  until  the  hour  for  the  meeting  of  the  Convention, 
and  many  of  the  delegations  went  into  the  Wigwam  with  no  definite 
program  beyond  the  first  ballot,  it  soon  became  clear  that  the  real 
contest  would  be  between  Seward  and  Lincoln.  This  was  demon- 
strated in  a  series  of  episodes  that  revealed  the  spontaneous  waves 
of  feeling  that  were  swaying  the  vast  multitude — spectators  and  dele- 
gates alike.  Indiana  seconded  the  nomination  of  Lincoln.  The  ap- 
plause that  followed  was  like  the  roar  of  a  tempest.  Michigan  sec- 
onded the  nomination  of  Seward.  Then  the  New  York  delegation  led 
in  a  shout  in  which  every  throat  in  the  building  seemed  to  join.  This 
put  Lincoln's  friends  on  their  mettle,  and  when  a  part  of  the  Ohio 
delegation  gave  them  an  opportunity  to  shout  again  for  their  favorite 
by  seconding  the  nomination  of  Lincoln  the  tumultuous  applause  that 
followed  was  deafening,  almost  appalling.  "  I  thought  the  Seward 
yell  could  not  be  surpassed,"  wrote  Murat  Halstead,  the  distinguished 
Cincinnati  journalist,  "  but  the  Lincoln  boys  were  clearly  ahead,  and 
feeling  their  victory,  as  there  was  a  lull  in  the  storm,  took  deep 
breaths  all  round,  and  gave  a  concentrated  shriek  that  was  positively 
awful,  and  accompanied  it  with  stamping  that  made  every  plank  and 
pillar  in  the  building  quiver."  Gradually  the  tumult  died  away,  and 


THE   SECOND   REPUBLICAN   CONVENTION.  59 

the  balloting  began.  There  were  only  three  ballots,  with  the  following 
results: 

1st.  2d.  3d. 

Whole  number  of  votes 465  465  465 

Necessary  to  a  choice 233  233  233 

William  H.  Seward,  of  New  York 173^          184i          180 

Abraham  Lincoln,  of  Illinois 102  181  23U 

Simon  Cameron,  of  Pennsylvania 50^  2 

Salmon  P.  Chase,  of  Ohio 49  42^  24^ 

Edward  Bates,  of  Missouri 48  35  22 

William  L.  Dayton,  of  New  Jersey 14  8  5 

Jacob  Collamer,  of  Vermont 10 

Scattering 6  2  1 

An  analysis  of  this  table  is  necessary  to  show  how  Seward  was 
beaten  and  Lincoln  nominated.  On  the  first  ballot  70  of  Seward's 
votes  came  from  New  York,  and  30  from  the  border  States,  including 
Kansas,  Nebraska,  and  the  District  of  Columbia.  The  rest  was  from 
New  England  and  the  Northwest.  The  action  of  the  six  New  England 
States  was  a  surprise  and  disappointment  to  Mr.  Seward's  friends. 
Rhode  Island,  Connecticut,  and  Vermont  wrere  unanimous  against 
him.  New  Hampshire  gave  him  only  one  vote,  and  Maine  and  Mas- 
sachusetts were  divided.  His  only  solid  delegation  from  the  North- 
west was  that  of  Michigan.  Lincoln  had  his  own  State,  Illinois,  and 
the  vote  of  Indiana  intact  from  the  beginning,  making  48,  besides  21 
from  the  border  States,  8  from  Ohio,  and  4  from  Pennsylvania.  The 
remaining  21  were  mostly  from  the  Western  States.  The  Ohio  vote 
was  divided  between  Chase  and  McLean,  excepting  the  8  votes  that 
went  to  Lincoln.  Together  the  two  Ohio  candidates  drew  only  15 
votes  from  other  States.  Cameron  lost  4^  votes  from  the  Pennsyl- 
vania delegation,  which  was  as  near  to  a  full  complimentary  ballot  as 
the  factional  feeling  in  that  State  ever  accorded  a  Pennsylvania  can- 
didate. Missouri  voted  solidly  for  Bates,  and  continued  voting  for 
him  throughout  the  balloting.  His  strength  outside  of  Missouri  was 
only  30  votes,  and  it  diminished  to  17  on  the  second,  and  4  on  the  last 
ballot.  The  result  showed  that  the  contest  was  between  Seward  and 
Lincoln,  but  it  failed  to  disclose  how  the  six  candidates,  who  held 
the  balance  of  power,  would  distribute  their  strength.  On  the  second 
ballot  Seward  gained  only  11  votes,  while  Lincoln  secured  79.  Of 
these  44  came  from  Cameron,  10  from  Collamer,  and  6  from  Chase  and 
McLean.  It  was  Pennsylvania  that  gave  Lincoln  the  impetus  on  this 
ballot  that  was  to  bring  him  within  U  votes  of  a  majority  on  the  next 
ballot.  Before  the  balloting  was  ended  on  the  third  ballot,  it  became 


60  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

known  that  the  crisis  had  been  reached ;  and  while,  as  is  customary  in 
such  crises,  the  announcement  of  the  result  was  held  back  by  the 
chair,  it  was  only  a  question  of  seconds  who  should  lead  in  changing 
from  other  candidates  to  Lincoln.  The  break  was  made  by  David  K. 
Carrter,  of  Ohio,  who  announced  a  change  of  4  votes  from  Chase  to 
Lincoln.  Then,  amidst  the  wildest  hurrahs,  delegation  after  delega- 
tion transferred  its  vote  to  the  victor,  until  Lincoln  had  received  354 
out  of  465.  After  the  result  was  announced  and  the  tempest  had  sub- 
sided, the  nomination,  on  motion  of  William  M.  Evarts,  of  New  York, 
seconded  by  John  A.  Andrew,  of  Massachusetts,  \vas  made  unani- 
mous. 

In  the  evening  the  Convention  proceeded  to  finish  its  work  by  nomi- 
nating a  candidate  for  Vice-President.  On  the  first  ballot,  Hannibal 
Hamlin,  of  Maine,  had  194  votes;  Cassius  M.  Clay,  of  Kentucky,  101^; 
John  Hicknian,  of  Pennsylvania,  58;  Andrew  H.  Reeder,  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, 51;  and  Nathaniel  P.  Banks,  of  Massachusetts,  38^.  On  the 
second  and  final  ballot  Hamlin  had  367,  Clay  86,  and  Hickman  13. 
This  selection  was  the  best  that  could  have  been  made,  and  the  ticket 
was  one  to  evoke  the  enthusiasm  of  the  party. 

While  the  balloting  was  in  progress  in  Chicago  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
sitting  in  the  office  of  the  State  Journal  at  Springfield,  which  was  con- 
nected by  Avire  with  the  Wigwam.  Within  a  few  minutes  of  the  an- 
nouncement of  the  result  on  the  last  ballot  he  was  handed  a  message, 
that  he  read  in  silence.  Then,  rising,  he  said  simply,  "  There  is  a 
little  woman  down  at  our  house  who  would  like  to  hear  this;  I'll  go 
down  and  tell  her." 

No  political  convention  ever  held  in  this  country  has  been  so  much 
written  about  as  the  Chicago  Convention  of  1860.  Few  of  those  who 
have  made  it  their  theme  have  agreed  in  their  accounts  of  the  motives 
that  controlled  it.  Mr.  Lincoln's  biographers,  Nicolay  and  Hay,  claim 
for  the  nomination  that  "  it  was  hardly  the  work  of  the  delegates — it 
was  the  concurrent  product  of  popular  wisdom."  "  It  is  one  of  the 
contradictions  not  infrequently  exhibited  in  the  movement  of  parti- 
san bodies,"  said  Mr.  Elaine,  "  that  Mr.  Seward  was  defeated  because 
of  his  radical  expressions  on  the  slavery  questions,  while  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  chosen  in  spite  of  expressions  far  more  radical  than  those  of  Mr. 
Seward."  It  is  unnecessary  to  accept  either  of  these  conclusions. 
The  determination  to  defeat  Seward,  at  first  latent,  then  active,  and 
finally  triumphant,  was  due  rather  to  his  prominence  than  his  prin- 
ciples. As  an  anti-slavery  man  Lincoln  had  been  fully  as  pronounced 
in  his  declarations  as  Seward.  Even  before  Seward's  announcement  of 
the  "  irrepressible  conflict,"  in  his  Rochester  speech,  in  1858,  Mr.  Lin- 
coln had  declared  that  this  Government  could  not  endure  half  slave 


THE   SECOND   REPUBLICAN    CONVENTION.  61 

and  half  free.  The  only  difference  between  the  two  candidates  on  the 
slavery  question  was  that  one  wras  widely  known  and  the  other  al- 
most unknown.  In  spite  of  the  prominence  which  his  joint  debate 
with  Mr.  Douglas  in  Illinois  in  1858,  and  his  great  speech  at  the 
Cooper  Union  in  New  York  in  1859,  had  given  him,  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
not  seriously  thought  of  as  a  Presidential  candidate  previous  to  the 
meeting  of  the  Chicago  Convention.  In  a  book  of  biographies  of 
Presidential  possibilities,  published  early  in  1860,  he  was  not  men- 
tioned in  conjunction  with  Seward,  Chase,  Bates,  Hale,  Banks,  Mc- 
Lean, Fremont,  and  Henry  Wilson.  It  was  the  original  purpose  of 
Seward's  opponents  to  concentrate  upon  Bates.  If  the  Convention 
had  been  held  in  St.  Louis,  instead  of  Chicago,  it  is  barely  possible 
the  scheme  would  have  succeeded.  If  it  had  failed  it  would  have 
been  because  Bates's  popularity  was  not  so  potent  in  the  one  city  as 
was  Lincoln's  in  the  other.  To  unite  on  any  of  the  other  candidates 
against  Seward  was  impossible.  Chase  was  a  man  of  great  and  recog- 
nized ability,  but  he  was  without  magnetism,  and  he  had  no  personal 
following- — not  even  the  united  support  of  his  own  State.  Dayton 
had  no  strength  outside  of  New  Jersey,  and  Cameron  had  none  out- 
side of  Pennsylvania.  Collamer  could  command  no  support  outside 
of  New  England.  Lincoln's  strength  was  not  considered  in  its  per- 
sonal aspects,  nor  were  his  immediate  friends  instrumental  in  secur- 
ing his  nomination.  The  whole  question  was  one  of  availability,  un- 
der conditions  in  which  Mr.  Seward  Avas  not  considered  available. 
In  determining  this  question  it  was  Indiana,  not  Illinois,  that  was  the 
more  potent;  it  was  the  friends  of  Lane  in  Lincoln's  behalf,  not  Lin- 
coln's Illinois  friends,  active,  able,  enthusiastic,  and  skillful  as  they 
were,  who  molded  the  plastic  material  in  the  Convention  to  their 
will.  The  friends  of  Curtin  were  willing  to  follow  the  friends  of  Lane 
wherever  the  latter  chose  to  lead.  When  Pennsylvania  united  with 
Illinois  and  Indiana  on  the  second  ballot  Seward's  sun  was  about  to 
set— Lincoln's  star  was  seen  to  rise  as  the  harbinger  of  the  coming 
victory.  It  was  no  great  question  of  principle  that  dictated  Lincoln's 
success  and  Seward's  failure,  but  the  whole  matter  resolved  itself  into 
an  adjustment  of  party  needs  in  localities  where  party  success  was  im- 
perative. Their  failure  was  not  without  the  bitterness  of  disappoint- 
ment to  Seward  and  his  friends,  but  they  could  take  no  offense  at  the 
triumph  of  Lincoln.  Happily  they  cherished  no  ill-will,  nourished 
no  hatreds,  but  accepted  the  discipline  of  defeat  with  the  heroism  of 
men  to  whom  devotion  to  their  cause  was  paramount  to  every  other 
consideration.  Seward,  like  Clay  and  Webster,  had  failed  in  the 
ambition  of  a  lifetime,  but  his  fame  is  all  the  brighter  because  he 
manfullv  subordinated  his  own  claims  upon  the  party  he  had  done 


62  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

so  much  to  create  to  the  decree  of  its  great  tribunal,  which  could 
make  and  unmake  leaders. 

At  the  time  of  his  nomination  Abraham  Lincoln  was  51  years  old. 
He  had  many  of  the  elements  of  a  popular  candidate  for  the  Presi- 
dency in  the  peculiar  crisis  when  he  was  made  the  standard-bearer 
of  the  Republican  party.  He  was  one  of  the  plain  people,  to  begin 
with,  with  all  their  virtues  and  some  of  their  shortcomings.  He  was 
self-educated,  self-made.  By  birth  he  belonged  to  the  pioneer  class, 
and  he  was  a  typical  product  of  that  Western  civilization  that  pro- 
duced men  strong  of  limb,  sound  of  brain,  and  bold  of  heart.  Born 
in  Kentucky,  he  had  been  reared  in  Indiana,  and  had  attained  his 
young  manhood  in  that  "  land  of  full-grown  men,"  Illinois.  As  an 
ungainly,  long-legged,  strong-limbed,  and  cheery  young  fellow  he 
worked  as  a  farm-hand  in  the  Sangamon  country,  and  with  his  own 
hands  split  the  rails  that  fenced  his  father's  first  farm  in  Illinois. 
Striking  out  for  himself,  after  reaching  his  majority.,  young  Lincoln 

made  one  of  the  crew  of  a  flatboat  in 
a  winter  voyage  down  the  Sangamon 
and  the  Mississippi  to  New  Orleans. 
Then  he  found  employment  managing 
a  country  store  at  New  Salem,  and 
spent  his  leisure  time  in  reading  such 
books  as  he  was  able  to  procure.  In  a 
year  or  two  he  was  accounted  a  prod- 
igy of  learning  by  his  less  studious 

LINCOLN'S  BIRTHPLACE.  neighbors,  and  as  early  as  1832  he  was 

successful    in   becoming   a   candidate 

for  the  Legislature.  Before  the  election  came  on,  the  famous  Indian 
chief,  Black  Hawk,  was  on  the  warpath,  and  Lincoln  was  one  of  the 
first  to  volunteer.  He  was  made  captain  of  his  company,  but  so  far 
as  it  concerned  Lincoln's  command  the  campaign  was  a  bloodless 
one.  After  his  return  from  Black  Hawk's  war  Lincoln  failed  of  his 
election  to  the  Legislature,  and  his  employer  failed  in  business.  He 
then  tried  a  country  store  on  his  own  account,  but  the  speculation 
proved  disastrous.  Thus  he  was  again  without  employment  and  in 
debt.  He  then  turned  his  attention  to  surveying,  and  became  an 
amateur  lawyer.  In  1834  he  was  again  a  candidate  for  the  Legisla- 
ture, and  was  elected.  He  was  three  times  re-elected.  Becoming  a 
full-fledged  lawyer,  Lincoln,  in  1837,  settled  in  Springfield,  which  had 
just  become  the  capital  of  Illinois.  There  he  practiced  until  his  elec- 
tion to  the  Presidency,  his  law  partners  being  John  T.  Stuart,  1837- 
41;  Stephen  T.  Logan,  1841-3,  and  William  H.  Herndon,  1843- 
65.  Lincoln  gained  distinction  at  the  bar,  and  in  a  few  years  was 


THE   SECOND   REPUBLICAN   CONVENTION.  63 

recognized  as  one  of  the  leading  lawyers  of  the  State.  In  1846  he  was 
elected  to  Congress,  his  Democratic  competitor  being  Peter  Cart- 
wright,  the  famous  backwoods  preacher.  In  his  speeches  in  Congress 
there  were  some  characteristic  touches.  "  He  invaded  Canada  with- 
out resistance,"  he  said  of  General  Lewis  Cass,  "  and  he  outvaded 
without  pursuit."  "  First  he  takes  up  one,"  he  remarked  of  Presi- 
dent Polk's  positions  on  the  Mexican  war,  "  and  in  attempting  to 
argue  us  into  it,  he  argues  himself  out  of  it."  "  His  manner  of  speech, 
as  well  as  thought,  Avas  original,"  Alexander  H.  Stephens  said  of  him 
many  years  afterward.  "  He  had  no  model.  He  was  a  man  of  strong 
convictions  and,  what  Carlyle  would  have  called,  an  earnest  man.  He 
abounded  in  anecdote.  He  illustrated  everything  he  was  talking 
about  with  an  anecdote,  always  exceedingly  apt  and  pointed;  and 
socially  he  always  kept  his  company  in  a  roar  of  laughter."  Although 
his  service  in  the  House  was  restricted 
to  the  30th  Congress,  he  evinced  his 
strong  anti-slavery  convictions  by  in- 
troducing a  bill  for  the  abolition  of 
slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia. 
In  those  days  a  man  in  Illinois  who 
wanted  a  second  term  in  Congress  was 
considered  greedy,  and  Lincoln  was 
compelled  to  stand  aside  for  Edward 
D.  Baker,  who  had  returned  from  Mex- 
ico renowned  for  distinguished  service 
at  Cerro  Gordo.  Lincoln  then  sought 
to  be  Commissioner  of  the  General 
Land  Office  under  President  Taylor,  HANNIBAL  HAMLIN. 

but  was  offered  the  Governorship  of  Oregon  instead,  which  he  de- 
clined because  of  the  reluctance  of  his  wife  to  go  to  the  Pacific  coast. 
It  is  a  noteworthy  coincidence  that  Baker,  his  successor  in  the  House 
of  Representatives,  was  a  Senator  in  Congress  from  Oregon  when 
Lincoln  became  President  of  the  United  States.  After  leaving  Con- 
gress Mr.  Lincoln  devoted  himself  to  his  law  practice,  and  was  losing 
his  interest  in  politics  when  the  Repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise 
again  aroused  him  to  activity.  He  met  Mr.  Douglas  in  joint  discus- 
sion in  1854,  and  in  1858  occurred  the  famous  joint  debate  between 
Douglas  and  Lincoln.  It  was  these  contests  with  the  "  Little  Giant  " 

~ 

that  made  him  a  Presidential  possibility  against  Douglas  in  1860. 

Hannibal  Hamlin,  Mr.  Lincoln's  associate  on  the  ticket,  was  ori- 
ginally a  Democrat  of  the  school  of  Silas  Wright.  He  was  a  lawyer 
by  profession,  and  had  served  in  the  Maine  Legislature  from  1836  to 
1840;  he  was  a  Representative  in  the  28th  and  28th  Congresses,  and 


64  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

again  a  member  of  the  Maine  Legislature  in  1847,  and  was  elected  to 
the  United  States  Senate  in  1848,  and  re-elected  for  six  years  in  1851. 
In  January,  1857,  he  resigned  his  seat  in  the  Senate  to  become  Gov- 
ernor of  Maine,  but,  being  again  elected  United  States 
Senator  for  six  years,  he  resigned  the  Governorship  after 
holding  it  only  six  weeks.  His  opposition  to  the  Eepeal 
of  the  Missouri  Compromise  had  separated  him  from  his  old  politi- 
cal associates.  His  candidature  for  Governor  of  Maine,  in  1856,  was 
undertaken  in  opposition  to  the  Democratic  party  in  that  State,  and 
his  success  gave  a  great  impulse  to  Republican  organization  through- 
out the  country.  Mr.  Hamlin  was  a  man  of  strong  common  sense, 
great  sagacity,  sound  judgment,  and  rugged  integrity.  His  nomina- 
tion imparted  strength  to  the  ticket,  and  helped  to  inspire  the  party 
with  confidence  and  courage  throughout  the  campaign. 

The  ticket  was  one  that  aroused  the  Free  States  to  enthusiasm,  and 
the  weary  delegates,  speeding  homeward  from  Chicago,  saw  evidences 
of  the  approbation  of  the  country  in  every  village.  Blazing  bonfires, 
clanging  bells,  and  thundering  cannon,  and  processions  bearing- 
rails  in  honor  of  the  rail-splitter  of  Illinois,  attested  the  satisfaction 
with  which  the  work  of  the  Chicago  Convention  was  received  by  the 
people,  and  opened  a  campaign  that  was  to  become  unique  in  history. 


V. 

THE  LINCOLN  AND   HAMLIN   CAMPAIGN. 

Shades  of  Opinion  in  the  Canvass — Mr.  Lincoln  During  the  Campaign 
—Republican  Enthusiasm  and  Oratory — Seward  and  His  Friends 
-Hostility  of  the  Commercial  Class  to  Republican  Success- 
Campaign  Medals— The  Wide-A wakes— The  Illinois  Rail-Split- 
ter— the  State  Elections — Analysis  of  the  Presidential  Vote. 

ITH  four  Presidential  tickets  in  the  field,  the  campaign  of 
1860  could  not  fail  to  be  an  animated  one.  The  four  can- 
didates for  President  represented  every  shade  of  political 
opinion  on  the  slavery  question.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  in  favor 
of  prohibiting  slavery  extension  by  law.  Mr.  Breckinridge  demanded 
legal  protection  for  its  extension.  Mr.  Douglas  occupied  a  position 
between  these  two  extremes,  and  advocated  his  doctrine  of  non-in- 
tervention with  the  fiery  impetuosity  and  tireless  energy  for  which  he 
was  remarkable.  Mr.  Bell  desired  to  avoid  the  only  real  question 
that  was  at  issue,  and  to  concentrate  the  interest  of  the  country  on 
what  he  considered  the  paramount  duty  of  saving  the  Union.  It  was 
apparent  from  the  outset  that  the  supporters  of  Breckinridge  con- 
templated the  destruction  of  the  Government  if  they  failed  in  the 
elections.  This  was  not  only  the  belief  of  the  Republicans  and  of  the 
supporters  of  Douglas  and  Bell,  but  it  was  openly  avowed  and  pub- 
licly proclaimed  by  the  Southern  Democracy.  In  pursuance  of  this 
policy  the  supporters  of  Breckinridge  proceeded  to  render  the  election 
of  Douglas  impossible,  and  the  election  of  Lincoln  a  certainty,  by 
organizing  a  party  and  nominating  Breckinridge  electors  in  many  of 
the  Free  States,  notably  in  Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey,  Connecticut, 
California,  and  Oregon.  Their  manifest  purpose  was  to  create  alarm 
in  the  North,  but  the  time  had  gone  by  when  the  Northern  people 
would  yield  to  their  fears  for  the  Union;  and  the  Republicans,  instead 
of  being  weakened  by  the  threat  that  a  President  constitutionally 
elected  could  not  be  inaugurated,  were  strengthened  by  the  domineer- 
ing and  offensive  declarations  of  the  South.  It  soon  became  apparent 
that  Mr.  Lincoln's  election  was  a  certainty,  and  not  even  the  "  fusion  " 
tickets  in  the  States  of  New  York,  New  Jersey,  and  Rhode  Island 
could  prevent  it.  Every  coalition  in  the  Free  States  meant  combined 
opposition  to  Republican  success,  but  in  the  Slave  States  the  Breck- 
inridge men  would  consent  to  no  compromise,  partnership,  or  ar- 


66  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

rangement  with  the  partisans  of  Douglas,  although  aware  that  the 
effect  would  be  to  give  Virginia,  Kentucky,  and  Maryland  to  Bell  and 
Everett.  All  of  these  considerations  entered  into  the  discussions 
throughout  the  campaign,  and  rendered  it  more  animated  than  any 
that  had  gone  before  it. 

During  the  campaign  Mr.  Lincoln  remained  quietly  at  his  home  at 
Springfield,  making  no  public  addresses,  writing  no  political  letters, 
and  holding  no  conferences  with  politicians.  As  a  matter  of  course, 
letters  came  to  him  b}r  the  hundred  from  every  part  of  the  country, 
and  a  constant  stream  of  visitors  sought  the  Republican  candidate, 
some  from  idle  curiosity,  some  with  an  honest  purpose  of  encouraging 
him  and  serving  him,  and  many  to  put  in  a  good  word  for  themselves 
in  case  of  his  election.  The  one  change  made  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  daily 
life  during  the  campaign  was  his  occupancy  of  the  Governor's  room 
in  the  State  House  at  Springfield,  which  was  not  needed  for  official 
business  during  the  absence  of  the  Legislature.  It  was  a  plain  room 
of  modest  proportions,  and  scantily  furnished.  Free  access  was 
given  to  all  who  chose  to  enter.  Mr.  Lincoln  watched  the  campaign 
carefully,  but  took  no  active  part  in  its  direction,  and  acted  in  all 
respects  as  if  he  were  only  an  indifferent  observer.  Mr.  Douglas,  on 
the  contrary,  for  the  first  time  in  the  case  of  a  Presidential  candidate, 
took  the  stump  on  his  own  behalf.  A  ready  and  able  debater,  he  at- 
tracted large  crowds  to  his  meetings,  speaking  in  nearty  all  the  Free 
and  in  some  of  the  Slave  States;  but  he  soon  found  that  the  odds 
against  him  were  too  heavy  to  leave  any  well-grounded  hope  for  his 
election.  His  speeches  were  designed  to  prove  that  he  was  the  only 
safe  candidate — that  Breckinridge  represented  the  sectionalism  of 
slavery,  and  Lincoln  the  sectionalism  of  anti-slavery.  It  was  the  old 
appeal  to  the  fears  of  the  people,  that  had  been  the  basis  of  all  the 
compromises  and  concessions  since  1820.  It  was  ineffective,  because 
the  Free  States  wrere  no  longer  in  a  temper  for  evasion  or  surrender. 
His  doctrine  of  "  squatter  sovereignty  "  had  become  as  hateful  to  the 
South  as  the  restrictions  of  the  Wilmot  Proviso,  and  there  was  never 
a  doubt  from  the  beginning  to  the  close  of  the  campaign  that  the 
Southern  Democracy  was  as  bitterly  hostile  to  Douglas  as  to  Lincoln. 
Bell's  prospects  were  equally  hopeless,  and  neither  the  Constitutional 
Union  party  nor  its  candidate  had  any  real  share  in  the  campaign, 
except  to  stultify  the  memories  of  Clay  and  Webster,  by  diverting 
from  Lincoln  and  the  North  part  of  the  support  of  which  he  was  en- 
titled, and  giving  to  Breckinridge  and  the  South  a  part  of  the  elec- 
toral strength  that  ought  to  have  gone  to  Douglas. 

In  the  campaign  of  1860  the  Republicans  had  the  advantage  of 
presenting  a  united  front  to  the  enemy,  while  the  Democracy  was 


THE   LINCOLN   AND   HAMLIN   CAMPAIGN. 


67 


arraying  itself  in  two  hostile  camps  at  Charleston  and  Baltimore. 
In  nearly  all  of  the  great  cities  of  the  North  enthusiastic  ratification 
meetings  were  held  before  the  nominations  of  Douglas  and  Breckin- 
ridge  were  made  by  the  contending  Democratic  factions.  At  these 
meetings  speeches  were  made  by  the  young  orators  of  the  Republican 
party  from  all  over  the  Free  States.  Among  the  earliest  of  these 
meetings  was  one  held  in  Independence  Square,  in  Philadelphia,  on 
the  26th  of  May,  at  which  addresses  were  made  by  Lyman  Trumbull, 
of  Illinois;  William  Dunn,  of  Indiana;  John  Sherman,  of  Ohio,  and 
Galusha  A.  Grow,  of  Pennsylvania.  The  bitter  assaults  upon  Sher- 
man and  Grow  during  the  contest  for  the  Speakership  at  the  opening 
of  Congress  made  them  popular  favorites,  and  they  were  serenaded 
after  the  meeting  with  an  outburst 
of  enthusiasm  that  showed  how 
thoroughly  the  people  were  aroused 
to  the  importance  of  the  issues 
involved  in  the  campaign.  In  New 
York,  in  Boston,  in  Cincinnati,  in 
Chicago,  in  all  the  smaller  cities 
from  Portland,  Maine,  to  Portland, 
Oregon  —  in  the  towns  and  vil- 
lages and  country  schoolhouses,  the 
orators  of  the  party  met  respon- 
sive gatherings  of  the  people,  some- 
times in  great  processions  wearing 
badges  and  carrying  torches,  and 
sometimes  in  quiet  neighborhood 
meetings,  but  with  the  badges 
and  torches  everywhere.  Every 
conspicuous  Republican  orator  in 
the  North  and  West  was  pressed  into  the  service,  but  the  young  men 
were  especially  active  and  eloquent.  Among  the  most  distinguished 
then  or  afterward  were  Governor  Chase,  of  Ohio;  Judge  Wilmot,  of 
Pennsylvania;  William  M.  Evarts,  of  New  York,  and  John  A.  An- 
drew, of  Massachusetts.  Curtin  and  Lane  canvassed  their  States  with 
a  thoroughness  that  had  never  before  been  attempted  in  these  old 
Democratic  strongholds,  feeling  that  the  responsibility  for  success 
or  failure  rested  largely  upon  their  shoulders.  Horace  Greeley  left 
the  editorial  rooms  of  the  Tribune  to  address  ward  meetings  and  rural 
gatherings,  and  George  William  Curtis  gave  his  party  the  benefit  of 
his  polished  periods  and  brilliant  oratory.  But  the  most  conspicuous 
of  the  Republican  orators  during  the  canvass  was,  of  course,  William 
H.  Seward.  He  made  a  political  tour  through  the  Northwest  during 


68  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

the  autumn,  making  speeches  of  a  remarkably  high  order.  His  clos- 
ing address  was  made  to  his  own  townsmen  at  Auburn  the  night  be- 
fore the  election.  A  few  sentences  from  that  closing  speech  summed 
up  the  situation,  as  it  had  been  developed  by  months  of  campaign- 
ing. "  You  may  go  \vith  me  into  the  streets  to-night,"  he  said,  "  and 

follow  the  '  Little  Giants,'  who  go  with  their 
torchlights  and  their  flaunting  banners  of 
1  Popular  Sovereignty  ';  or  you  may  go  with  the 
smaller  and  more  select  and  modest  band,  who 
go  for  Breckinridge  and  Slavery;  or  you  may 
follow  the  music  of  the  clanging  bells;  and, 
strange  to  say,  they  will  bring  you  into  one 
chamber.  When  you  get  there,  you  will  hear 
only  this  emotion  of  the  human  heart  appealed 
to,  Fear — fear  that  if  you  elect  a  President  of 
the  United  States  according  to  the  constitution 
and  the  lawrs  to-morrow,  you  will  wake  up  next 
day  and  find  that  you  have  no  country  for  him 
to  preside  over!  Is  that  not  a  strange  motive 

for  an  American  patriot  to  appeal  to?  And,  in  that  same  hall,  amid 
the  jargon  of  three  discordant  members  of  the  '  Fusion '  party,  you 
will  hear  one  argument;  and  that  argument  is,  that  so  sure  as  you 
are  so  perverse  as  to  cast  your  vote  singly,  lawfully,  honestly,  as  you 
ought  to  do,  for  one  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  instead  of  scatter- 
ing it  among  three  candidates,  so  that  no  President  may  be  elected, 
this  Union  shall  come  down  over  your  heads,  involving  you  and  us  in 
a  common  ruin!  "  » 

These  sentiments  were  the  dominating  note  of  the  canvass.  Wher- 
ever a  Republican  speaker  was  heard  the  people  were  urged  not  to 
yield  to  the  fears  that  it  was  hoped  would  paralyze  Republican  ac- 
tivity and  prevent  the  election  of  Lincoln.  But  while  Sewrard  adopted 
the  manly  course  in  upholding  the  party  and  supporting  its  candidate, 
he  made  no  attempt  either  then  or  afterward  to  conceal  how  keenly 
he  felt  his  disappointment.  Curtin  and  Lane  he  treated  with  a  frigid- 
ity that  showed  that  he  held  them  responsible  for  his  defeat,  and 
that  kept  them  aloof  from  him  ever  afterward.  His  friends  were  even 
more  unforgiving.  Although  Governor  Edwin  D.  Morgan,  of  New 
York,  consented  to  remain  at  the  head  of  the  National  Committee,  he 
exhibited  no  cordiality  toward  either  of  these  men,  and  was  indiffer- 
ent to  the  success  of  the  Republicans  in  Pennsylvania  and  Indiana. 
Weed  was  brusque  even  to  rudeness.  "  I  called  on  Morgan  the  night 
after  the  nomination  was  made,"  Curtin  wrote  in  August.  "  He 
treated  me  civilly,  but  with  marked  coolness;  and  I  then  called  on 


THE   LINCOLN   AND   HAMLIN    CAMPAIGN.  69 

Weed,  who  was  very  rude  indeed."  Thurlow  Weed  was  not  a  man 
who  sought  to  cloak  his  resentments.  "  You  have  defeated  the  man 
who,  of  all  others,  was  most  revered  by  the  people  and  wanted  as 
President,"  he  said  to  Curtin.  "  You  and  Lane  want  to  be  elected, 
and  to  elect  Lincoln  you  must  elect  yourselves."  Neither  Weed  nor 
Morgan  responded  to  appeals  in  behalf  of  the  State  ticket  in  Penn- 
sylvania, although  the  results  of  the  Presidential  contest  hinged  upon 
Republican  success  in  that  State,  in  the  October  elections;  but  the 
party  was  so  well  satisfied  with  Lincoln's  nomination  that  the  indif- 
ference of  the  New  York  magnates  produced  no  evil  consequences. 

A  marked  feature  of  the  campaign  was  the  hostility  of  the  com- 
mercial classes  to  Republican  success.  This  was  especially  the  case 
with  the  "  merchant  princes  "  of  New  York  and  Philadelphia.  Their 
dissatisfaction  was  partly  due  to  a  fear  of  secession  and  civil  war 
should  Lincoln  be  elected,  and  partly  to  the  large  Southern  indebted- 
ness to  the  mercantile  classes  in  these  two  great  commercial  cities. 
"  I  can  not  recall  five  commercial  houses  of  prominence  in  the  city  of 
Philadelphia,"  wrote  the  chairman  of  the  Republican  State  Commit- 
tee of  Pennsylvania  afterward,  "  where  I  could  have  gone  to  solicit  a 
subscription  to  the  Lincoln  campaign  with  reasonable  expectation 
that  it  would  not  be  resented,  and  of  all  our  financial  men  I  can  recall 
only  Anthony  J.  Drexel  who  actually  sympathized  with  the  Republi- 
can cause."  In  New  Y^ork  city  the  fears  of  the  merchants  of  a  result 
fatal  to  their  business,  their  prosperity,  and  their  affluence,  were  so 
vivid  and  earnest,  that  while  there  was  abundance  of  money  for  "  Fu- 
sion," there  was  little  or  none  to  promote  Republican  success.  But 
even  the  potency  of  wealth  availed  nothing  against  the  tide  of  popu- 
lar conviction  and  enthusiasm. 

Any  account  of  the  campaign  would  be  incomplete  without  some 
mention  of  the  badges  and  symbols  and  marching  clubs  that  were  its 
most  picturesque  features.  The  Republicans  had  their  "  Wide- 
Awakes,"  "  Lincoln  Defenders,"  "  Republican  Invincibles,"  and 
"  Rail-Splitters  ";  and  even  the  Constitutional  Union  party  marched 
as  "  Bell-Ringers  "  and  "  Minute  Men  of  '56."  Campaign  medals  were 
worn  throughout  the  canvass  by  the  partisans  of  all  the  candidates. 
There  was  a  beautiful  portrait  medal  of  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  one  of 
the  same  size,  but  inferior  workmanship,  of  John  C.  Breckinridge,  and 
a  smaller  one  than  either  of  these  of  John  Bell.  The  Lincoln  portrait 
medals  in  many  cases  combined  the  portraits  of  both  Lincoln  and 
Hamlin,  and  one  of  them  had  a  characteristic  inscription,  "  Abra- 
Ham  Lin-Coin."  Altogether  the  number  of  Lincoln  medals  of  1860 
was  about  200,  which  is  second  only  in  American  political  medals  to 
the  extensive  series  of  Washington  medallions  covering  a  period  of 


70 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 


many  years.  The  most  interesting  pieces  of  the  Lincoln  series  were 
those  worn  by  the  Hartford  "  Wide-A wakes,"  the  first  uniformed 
body  of  voters  to  take  part  in  political  processions.  This  medal  shows 
on  its  obverse  a  "  Wide-Awake  "  in  full  uniform,  carrying  a  lantern, 
and  on  the  reverse  another  bearing  a  torch.  The  obverse  of  one  of 
these  medals  shows  a  "  Wide- Awake,"  wearing  a  characteristic 
"  Wide-Awake  "  hat,  and  bears  the  inscription,  "  I  am  ready."  Med- 
als relating  to  Lincoln's  struggles  in  early  life  were  very  popular, 
and  there  was  a  number  of  them  bearing  such  inscriptions  as  "  Great 
Kail-Splitter  of  the  West,"  and  "  The  Kail-Splitter  of  1830."  The  rail- 


DOUGLAS  MEDAL. 


BRECKINRIDGE  MEDAL. 


splitter  of  1830  was,  of  course,  the  party  splitter  of  1860.  Other  in- 
scriptions in  the  Lincoln  series  were  "  Honest  Abe  of  the  West," 
"  Honest  Old  Abe,"  "  No  More  Slave  Territory,"  and  "  Free  Homes 
for  Free  Men."  In  originality  of  design  and  beauty  of  execution  they 
were  not  inferior  to  the  Clay  pieces  of  1844,  representing  "  The  Same 
Old  Coon,  O.  K."  and  "  The  Mill  Boy  of  the  Slashes."  With  this  Lin- 
coln series  political  medals  in  Presidential  campaigns  ceased  to  be 
noteworthy,  although  a  few  characteristic  ones  remain  to  be  noticed 
hereafter. 

The  origin  of  the  "  Wide- A  wakes  "  is  a  cqrious  bit  of  political  his- 


THE   LINCOLN   AND   HAMLIN   CAMPAIGN.  71 

tory.  The  organization  grew  out  of  an  incident  of  the  first  campaign 
meeting  at  Hartford,  February  25,  1800 — the  State  election.  Cas- 
sius  M.  Clay,  of  Kentucky,  was  the  principal  speaker,  and  it  was  ar- 
ranged that  after  the  meeting  he  should  be  escorted  to  the  Allyn 
House  by  a  torchlight  procession.  Two  of  the  young  men  who  were 
to  carry  torches,  D.  G.  Francis  and  H.  P.  Blair,  in  order  to  protect 
their  clothing  from  the  oil  likely  to  fall  from  their  lamps,  prepared 
for  themselves  capes  of  black  cambric,  which  they  wore  in  connection 
with  their  glazed  caps.  Colonel  G.  P.  Bissell,  wrho 
was  marshal  of  the  parade,  noticing  the  uniform 
worn  by  the  two  young  men,  put  them  in  front  of 
the  procession,  where  the  novelty  of  the  rig,  and 
its  double  advantage  in  utility  and  in  show,  at- 
tracted much  attention.  The  incident  suggested 
a  campaign  club  of  fifty  torch-bearers,  with  glazed 
caps  and  oilcloth  capes,  instead  of  cambric,  the 
torch-bearing  club  to  be  auxiliary  to  the  Young  Men's  Republican 
Union.  It  was  intended  formally  to  organize  the  torch-bearers  on  the 
Gth  of  March,  but  on  the  evening  of  the  5th  Abraham  Lincoln  addressed 
a  meeting  at  Hartford.  After  his  speech  such  of  the  cape-wearers  as 
had  secured  their  uniforms  escorted  Mr.  Lincoln  to  his  hotel.  In  notic- 
ing the  proposed  organization  of  the  torch-bearers,  a  day  or  two  be- 
fore, William  P.  Fuller,  city  editor  of  the  Hartford  Courant,  alluded  to 
them  as  the  "  Wide-Awakes."  The  name  was  applied  to  the  Repub- 
lican Young  Men's  Union  as  well  as  the  torch-bearers,  but  at  their 
meeting  on  the  Gth  of  March  the  latter  determined  to  appropriate 
the  title  as  the  distinctive  name  of  their  special  organization.  Their 
example  was  followed  by  the  Republican  torch-bearers  all  over  the 
country,  and  before  the  Presidential  campaign  was  well  under 
way,  the  "  Wide-Awakes  "  had  swallowed  up  the  names  and  the  mem- 
bership of  other  Republican  clubs  everywhere.  It  was  just  one  year 
after  the  Hartford  "  Wide-Awakes  "  escorted  Mr.  Lincoln  in  their 
first  parade  that  he  was  inaugurated  President  of  the  United  States. 
On  a  number  of  occasions  as  many  as  twenty  and  perhaps  thirty 
thousand  "  Wide-Awakes  "  marched  in  the  torchlight  processions  in 
the  larger  cities. 

The  rail  symbols  and  the  rail-splitter  phrases  originated  at  the 
Illinois  Republican  Convention  at  Decatur,  May  10,  I860.  While  the 
Convention  was  at  work  the  proceedings  were  interrupted  by  a  mys- 
terious announcement  that  an  old  citizen  of  Macon  County  had  some- 
thing to  present.  Curiosity  having  been  sufficiently  aroused  for  the 
episode,  John  Hanks  and  one  of  Hauks's  neighbors  entered  the  hall, 
each  bearing  an  old  fence  rail  purporting  to  be  two  identical  rails 


72 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 


from  a  lot  of  3,000  which  the  boy  Lincoln  had  helped  to  cut  and  split 
in  1830  for  the  inclosure  of  his  father's  farm.  These  emblems  of  his 
handiwork  were  intended  as  a  prelude  to  a  resolution  recommending 
him  for  President  of  the  United  States,  and  they  were  received  by 
the  Convention  with  deafening  shouts.  Lincoln  was  present  on  this 
occasion,  but  it  is  said  he  was  not  greatly  pleased  with  the  rail-splitter 
incident.  Years  afterward  he  was  asked  if  he  believed  they  were  the 
veritable  rails  he  and  Hanks  had  made.  "  I  wouldn't  make  my  affi- 
davit that  they  were,"  he  said,  "  but  Hanks  and  I  did  make  rails  on 
that  piece  of  ground,  although  I  think  I  could  make  better  rails  now, 
and  I  did  say  that  if  there  are  any  of  the  rails  that  had  been  split,  I 
wouldn't  wonder  that  they  are  the  rails."  A  few  days  later  these 

rails  were  sent  to  Chicago,  where, 
trimmed  with  flowers  and  lighted  up 
with  tapers,  they  were  exhibited  in  the 
hotel  parlor  at  the  headquarters  of  the 
Illinois  delegation.  Their  history  and 
the  campaign  incidents  of  which  they 
were  the  features  were  duly  exploited 
in  the  newspapers  throughout  the  West 
and  North.  Although  the  Republican 
candidate  was  in  consequence  hailed  as 
the  "Rail-Splitter  of  Illinois,"  it  was 
spitefully  asked  "  Will  he  split  the 
Union  as  he  used  to  split  rails?  "  It 
does  not  appear  that  it  became  custom- 
ary for  rail-bearers  to  march  side  by 
side  with  the  torch-bearers  in  their 
Wide-Awake  caps  and  capes  in  the  Re- 
publican processions  of  the  campaign. 

The  spring  elections  of  I860  in  the  New  England  States  afforded  no 
certainty  of  a  Republican  triumph  in  November.  New  Hampshire 
was  carried  by  a  satisfactory  majority  in  February,  but  in  Connecti- 
cut Governor  Buckingham  was  re-elected  by  only  541  votes  in  a  total 
of  80,000,  and  in  Rhode  Island  the  Republicans  wrere  beaten  by  Will- 
iam Sprague  for  Governor  by  a  majority  of  1,460.  The  elections  in 
Maine  and  Vermont  in  September  showed  that  the  tide  had  turned. 
In  the  former  State  a  Republican  Governor  was  elected  by  a  majority 
of  18,091,  and  the  latter  followed  with  a  Republican  majority  of  22,- 
370.  If  Penns}^lvania  and  Indiana  showed  results  equally  decisive  in 
October  Lincoln's  election  could  be  regarded  as  a  certainty.  The 
whole  interest  of  the  campaign  was  centered  in  these  States,  in  which 
the  Democrats  were  united  and  hopeful.  In  Pennsylvania  Curtin 


ANDREW    G.    CURTIN. 


THE   LINCOLN   AND   HAMLIN   CAMPAIGN.  73 

was  opposed  by  Henry  D.  Foster,  who  had  the  hearty  support  of  the 
three  factions  into  which  a  disrupted  Democracy  divided  the  elements 
opposed  to  Republican  success.  In  Indiana  Thomas  A.  Hendricks 
was  Lane's  only  competitor.  Curtin  swept  Pennsylvania,  obtaining 
a  majority  of  32,164,  and  Lane  had  9,757  majority  in  Indiana.  It  was 
clear  that  nothing  short  of  a  miracle  would  prevent  the  election  of 
Lincoln  and  Hamlin  in  November. 

All  of  the  eighteen  Free  States  chose  all  the  Lincoln  electors  except 
New  Jersey,  where  Douglas  had  3  votes  in  the  Electoral  College  to  4 
for  Lincoln.  The  popular  vote  in  New  Jersey  is  usually  quoted  as 
62,801  for  Douglas  and  58,324  for  Lincoln,  but  this  is  scarcely  a  fair 
test  of  the  relative  strength  of  the  candidates.  The  "  Fusion  "  ticket 
was  made  up  of  three  Douglas,  two  Breckinridge,  and  two  Bell  repre- 
sentatives. This  required  "  scratching  "  in  every  case  in  which  a 
Douglas  Democrat  voted  for  Republican  electors.  If  the  Breckin- 
ridge and  Bell  votes  had  been  eliminated  from  the  so-called  "  Fusion  " 
vote,  Lincoln  would  have  had  a  plurality.  In  all  the  other  States  in 
which  Republican  electors  were  chosen,  except  California  and  Oregon, 
Lincoln  had  a  majority.  It  wras  the  Breckinridge  faction  that  de- 
prived Douglas  of  the  vote  of  both  these  States.  The  only  Slave  State 
that  Douglas  carried  was  Missouri.  Bell  carried  Virginia,  Kentucky, 
and  Tennessee.  If  Bell's  strength  had  been  given  to  Douglas  in  the 
South  it  would  have  given  him  the  States  of  Maryland,  Virginia, 
Georgia,  Louisiana,  Tennessee,  and  Kentucky.  Thus  it  will  be  seen 
that  the  Constitutional  Union  party  operated  in  behalf  of  the  party  of 
secession  in  the  Slave  States,  and  prevented  Douglas's  success  in  the 
two  Pacific  States.  But  not  even  a  United  Democracy  combined  with 
the  full  Bell  and  Everett  strength  would  have  defeated  the  Republi- 
can ticket.  The  Republican  majorities  in  15  States  gave  Lincoln  169 
electors,  to  a  possible  134  for  a  united  opposition.  In  the  Electoral 
College  Lincoln  had  180  votes,  Breckinridge  72,  Bell  39,  and  Douglas 
12.  Lincoln  fell  947,289  short  of  an  absolute  majority  in  a  popular 
vote  of  4,680,193. 

Had  Seward  been  nominated  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  he 
would  have  been  beaten  in  any  of  the  States  in  which  Lincoln  had 
majorities. 

This  triumph  ended  the  creative  period  of  the  Republican  party. 


DOCUMENTARY  HISTORY  OF  THE  EPOCH. 

THE   WILMOT   PROVISO. 

"  PROVIDED,  That,  as  an  express  and  fundamental  condition  to  the 
acquisition  of  any  territory  from  the  Republic  of  Mexico  by  the 
United  States,  by  virtue  of  any  treaty  that  may  be  negotiated  be- 
tween them,  and  to  the  use  by  the  Executive  of  the  moneys  herein 
appropriated,  neither  slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude  shall  ever 
exist  in  any  part  of  said  territory,  except  for  crime,  whereof  the  party 
shall  first  be  duly  convicted." 

SLAVERY    CLAUSES   IN   THE    DEMOCRATIC    PLATFORM,    1852. 

"  Resolved,  That  Congress  had  no  power,  under  the  Constitution,  to 
interfere  with  or  control  the  domestic  institutions  of  the  several 
States,  and  that  such  States  are  the  sole  and  proper  judges  of  every- 
thing appertaining  to  their  own  affairs  not  prohibited  by  the  Consti- 
tution; that  all  efforts  of  the  Abolitionists  or  others,  made  to  induce 
Congress  to  interfere  with  the  questions  of  slavery,  or  to  take  in- 
cipient steps  in  relation  thereto,  are  calculated  to  lead  to  the  most 
alarming  and  dangerous  consequences,  and  that  all  such  efforts  have 
an  inevitable  tendency  to  diminish  the  happiness  of  the  people,  and 
endanger  the  stability  and  permanency  of  the  Union,  and  ought  not  to 
be  countenanced  by  any  friend  to  our  political  institutions. 

"  Resolved,  That  the  foregoing  proposition  covers,  and  is  intended 
to  embrace,  the  whole  subject  of  slavery  agitated  in  Congress;  and 
therefore  the  Democratic  party  of  the  Union,  standing  on  this  na- 
tional platform,  will  abide  by,  and  adhere  to,  a  faithful  execution  of 
the  acts  known  as  the  l  compromise '  measures  settled  by  the  last 
Congress — the  act  for  reclaiming  fugitives  from  service  or  labor  in- 
cluded; which  act,  being  designed  to  carry  out  an  express  provision  of 
the  Constitution,  can  not  with  fidelity  thereto  be  repealed,  nor  so 
changed  as  to  destroy  or  impair  its  efficiency. 

"  Resolved,  That  the  Democratic  party  will  resist  all  attempts  at 
renewing  in  Congress,  or  out  of  it,  the  agitation  of  the  slavery  ques- 
tion, under  whatever  shape  or  color  the  attempt  may  be  made." 

The  Whig  Convention  declared  that  the  Compromise  measures  of 
1850  had  been  "  received  and  acquiesced  in  by  the  Whig  party  in  the 
United  States,  as  a  settlement  in  principle  and  substance  of  the  dan- 
gerous and  exciting  questions  which  they  embrace,"  and  further,  that 
this  system  was  "  essential  to  the  nationality  of  the  Whig  party,  and 
the  integrity  of  the  Union." 


DOCUMENTARY   HISTORY   OF  THE   EPOCH.  75 

WHIG  DECLARATION,  1852. 

"  That  the  series  of  acts  of  the  Thirty-second  Congress,  the  act 
known  as  the  Fugitive  Slave  law  included,  are  received  and  acqui- 
esced in  by  the  Whig  party  of  the  United  States  as  a  settlement  in 
principle  and  substance  of  the  dangerous  and  exciting  questions 
which  they  embrace;  and,  so  far  as  they  are  concerned,  we  will  main- 
tain them,  and  insist  upon  their  strict  enforcement,  until  time  and 
experience  shall  demonstrate  the  necessity  of  further  legislation  to 
guard  against  the  evasion  of  the  laws  on  the  one  hand  and  the  abuse 
of  their  powers  on  the  other,  not  impairing  their  present  efficiency; 
and  we  deprecate  all  further  agitation  of  the  question  thus  settled, 
as  dangerous  to  our  peace,  and  will  discountenance  all  efforts  to  con- 
tinue or  renew  such  agitation,  whenever,  wherever,  or  however  the 
attempt  may  be  made;  and  we  will  maintain  this  system  as  essential 
to  the  nationality  of  the  Whig  party  and  the  integrity  of  the  Union." 


REPUBLICAN  PLATFORM  OF  1856. 

This  convention  of  delegates,  assembled  in  pursuance  of  a  call  ad- 
dressed to  the  people  of  the  United  States,  without  regard  to  past 
political  differences  or  divisions,  who  are  opposed  to  the  repeal  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise,  to  the  policy  of  the  present  administration,  to 
the  extension  of  slavery  into  free  territory;  in  favor  of  admitting  Kan- 
sas as  a  Free  State,  of  restoring  the  action  of  the  Federal  Government 
to  the  principles  of  Washington  and  Jefferson;  and  who  purpose  to 
unite  in  presenting  candidates  for  the  offices  of  President  and  Vice- 
President,  do  resolve  as  follows: 

Resolved,  That  the  maintenance  of  the  principles  promulgated  in 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  embodied  in  the  Federal  Con- 
stitution is  essential  to  the  preservation  of  our  Republican  institu- 
tions, and  that  the  Federal  Constitution,  the  rights  of  the  States,  and 
the  union  of  the  States,  shall  be  preserved. 

Resolved,  That  with  our  Republican  fathers  we  hold  it  to  be  a 
self-evident  truth,  that  all  men  are  endowed  with  the  inalienable 
rights  to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  and  that  the 
primary  object  and  ulterior  designs  of  our  Federal  Government  were 
to  secure  these  rights  to  all  persons  within  its  exclusive  jurisdiction; 
that,  as  our  Republican  fathers,  when  they  had  abolished  slavery  in 
all  our  national  territory,  ordained  that  no  person  should  be  deprived 
of  life,  liberty,  or  property  without  due  process  of  law,  it  becomes  our 
duty  to  maintain  this  provision  of  the  constitution  against  all  at- 
tempts to  violate  it  for  the  purpose  of  establishing  slavery  in  any 


76  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

territory  of  the  United  States,  by  positive  legislation,  prohibiting  its 
existence  or  extension  therein.  That  we  deny  the  authority  of  Con- 
gress, of  a  Territorial  Legislature,  of  any  individual  or  association 
of  individuals,  to  give  legal  existence  to  slavery  in  any  Territory  of 
the  United  States,  while  the  present  constitution  shall  be  main- 
tained. 

Resolved,  That  the  Constitution  confers  upon  Congress  sovereign 
power  over  the  Territories  of  the  United  States,  for  their  government, 
and  that  in  the  exercise  of  this  power  it  is  both  the  right  and  the 
duty  of  Congress  to  prohibit  in  the  Territories  those  twin  relics  of 
barbarism,  polygamy  and  slavery. 

Resolved,  That  while  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  was 
ordained  and  established  by  the  people  in  order  to  form  a  more  per- 
fect Union,  establish  justice,  insure  domestic  tranquillity,  provide 
for  the  common  defense,  and  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty,  and  con- 
tains ample  provision  for  the  protection  of  the  life,  liberty,  and  prop- 
erty of  every  citizen,  the  dearest  constitutional  rights  of  the  people 
of  Kansas  have  been  fraudulently  and  violently  taken  from  them; 
their  territory  has  been  invaded  by  an  armed  force;  spurious  and 
pretended  legislative,  judicial,  and  executive  officers  have  been  set 
over  them,  by  whose  usurped  authorit}7,  sustained  by  the  military 
power  of  the  Government,  tyrannical  and  unconstitutional  law's  have 
been  enacted  and  enforced;  the  rights  of  the  people  to  keep  and  bear 
arms  have  been  infringed;  test  oaths  of  an  extraordinary  and  en- 
tangling nature  have  been  imposed  as  a  condition  of  exercising  the 
right  of  suffrage  and  holding  office;  the  right  of  an  accused  person  to 
a  speedy  and  public  trial  by  an  impartial  jury  has  been  denied;  the 
right  of  the  people  to  be  secure  in  their  persons,  houses,  papers,  and 
effects  against  unreasonable  searches  and  seizures  has  been  violated: 
they  have  been  deprived  of  life,  liberty,  and  property  without  due 
process  of  law;  that  the  freedom  of  speech  and  of  the  press  has  been 
abridged;  the  right  to  choose  their  representatives  has  been  made  of 
no  effect;  murders,  robberies,  and  arsons  have  been  instigated  and 
encouraged,  and  the  offenders  have  been  allowed  to  go  unpunished; 
that  all  these  things  have  been  done  with  the  knowledge,  sanction, 
and  procurement  of  the  present  administration;  and  that  for  this 
high  crime  against  the  Constitution,  the  Union,  and  humanity,  we 
arraign  the  administration,  the  President,  his  advisers,  agents,  sup- 
porters, apologists,  and  accessories,  either  before  or  after  the  fact, 
before  the  country  and  before  the  world,  and  that  it  is  our  fixed  pur- 
pose to  bring  the  actual  perpetrators  of  these  atrocious  outrages,  and 
their  accomplices,  to  a  sure  and  condign  punishment  hereafter. 

Resolved,  That  Kansas  should  be  immediately  admitted  as  a  State 
of  the  Union,  with  her  present  free  constitution,  as  at  once  the  most 


DOCUMENTARY    HISTORY   OF   THE   EPOCH.  77 

effectual  way  of  securing  to  her  citizens  the  enjoyment  of  the  rights 
and  privileges  to  which  they  are  entitled,  and  of  ending  the  civil 
strife  now  raging  in  her  territory. 

"  Resolved,  That  the  highwayman's  plea,  that  "  might  makes 
right,"  embodied  in  the  Ostend  circular,  was  in  every  respect  un- 
worthy of  American  diplomacy,  and  would  bring  shame  and  dishonor 
upon  any  government  or  people  that  gave  it  their  sanction. 

Resolved,  That  a  railroad  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  by  the  most  cen- 
tral and  practicable  route,  is  imperatively  demanded  by  the  interests 
of  the  whole  country,  and  that  the  Federal  Government  ought  to  ren- 
der immediate  and  efficient  aid  in  its  construction;  and,  as  an  auxil- 
iary thereto,  the  immediate  construction  of  an  emigrant  route  on  the 
line  of  the  railroad. 

Resolved,  That  appropriations  by  Congress  for  the  improvement 
of  rivers  and  harbors,  of  a  national  character,  required  for  the  accom- 
modation and  security  of  our  existing  commerce,  are  authorized  by 
the  Constitution,  and  justified  by  the  obligation  of  government  to 
protect  the  lives  and  property  of  its  citizens. 


THE    PHILADELPHIA   NOMINATION. 

Philadelphia,  June  19,  1856. 

SIR:  A  convention  of  delegates,  assembled  at  Philadelphia  on 
17th,  18th,  and  19th  days  of  June,  185G,  under  a  call  addressed  to  the 
people  of  the  United  States,  without  regard  to  past  political  differ- 
ences or  divisions,  who  are  opposed  to  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Com- 
promise, to  the  policy  of  the  present  administration,  to  the  extension 
of  slavery  into  free  territory,  in  favor  of  the  admission  of  Kansas  as 
a  Free  State,  and  of  restoring  the  action  of  the  Federal  Government 
to  the  principles  of  Washington  and  Jefferson,  adopted  a  declaration 
of  principles  and  purposes  for  which  they  are  united  in  political  ac- 
tion— a  copy  of  which  we  have  the  honor  to  inclose — and  unanimously 
nominated  you  as  their  candidate  for  the  office  of  President  of  the 
United  States  at  the  approaching  election,  as  the  chosen  representa- 
tive of  those  principles  in  this  important  political  contest,  and  with 
the  assured  conviction  that  you  would  give  them  full  practical  op- 
eration, should  the  suffrages  of  the  people  of  the  Union  place  you  at 
the  head  of  the  National  Government. 

The  undersigned  were  directed  by  the  convention  to  communicate 
to  you  the  fact  of  your  nomination,  and  to  request  you  in  their  name 
and,  as  they  believe,  in  the  name  of  a  large  majority  of  the  people  of 
the  country,  to  accept  it. 


78  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

Offering  you  the  assurance  of  our  high  personal  respect,  we  are 
your  fellow  citizens, 

H.  S.  LANE, 

Pres.  of  the  Convention. 
JAMES  M.  ASHLEY. 
ANTHONY  J.  BLEECKER. 
JOSEPH  C.  HOKNBLOWER. 
E.  K.  HOAR. 
THADDEUS  STEVENS. 

KlNGSLEY  S.  BlNGHAM. 

JOHN  A.  WILLS. 
C.  F.  CLEVELAND. 
CYRUS  ALDRICH. 
To  John  C.  Fremont,  of  California. 

ACCEPTANCE  OF  THE  PHILADELPHIA  NOMINATION. 

New  York,  July  8,  1856. 

GENTLEMEN:  You  call  me  to  a  high  responsibility  by  placing  me 
in  the  van  of  a  great  movement  of  the  people  of  the  United  States, 
who,  without  regard  to  past  differences,  are  united  in  a  common  effort 
to  bring  back  the  action  of  the  Federal  Government  to  the  principles 
of  Washington  and  Jefferson.  Comprehending  the  magnitude  of  the 
trust  which  they  have  declared  themselves  willing  to  place  in  my 
hands,  and  deeply  sensible  to  the  honor  which  their  unreserved  con- 
fidence in  this  threatening  position  of  public  affairs  implies,  I  feel  that 
I  can  not  better  respond  than  by  a  sincere  declaration  that,  in  the 
event  of  my  election  to  the  Presidency,  I  should  enter  upon  the  exe- 
cution of  its  duties  with  a  single-hearted  determination  to  promote 
the  good  of  the  whole  country,  and  to  direct  solely  to  this  end  all  the 
power  of  the  Government,  irrespective  of  party  issues,  and  regardless 
of  sectional  strifes.  The  declaration  of  principles  embodied  in  the 
resolves  of  your  convention,  expresses  the  sentiments  in  which  I  have 
been  educated,  and  which  have  been  ripened  into  convictions  by  per- 
sonal observation  and  experience.  With  this  declaration  and  avowal, 
I  think  it  necessary  to  revert  to  only  two  of  the  subjects  embraced  in 
the  resolutions,  and  to  those  only  because  events  have  surrounded 
them  with  grave  and  critical  circumstances,  and  given  to  them  espe- 
cial importance. 

I  concur  in  the  views  of  the  convention  deprecating  the  foreign 
policy  to  which  it  adverts.  The  assumption  that  we  have  the  right  to 
take  from  another  nation  its  domains  because  we  want  them,  is  an 
abandonment  of  the  honest  character  which  our  country  has  acquired. 


DOCUMENTARY   HISTORY   OF  THE   EPOCH.  79 

To  provoke  hostilities  by  unjust  assumptions  would  be  to  sacrifice  the 
peace  and  character  of  the  country,  when  all  its  interests  might  be 
more  certainly  secured,  and  its  objects  attained  by  just  and  healing 
counsels,  involving  no  loss  of  reputation. 

International  embarrassments  are  mainly  the  results  of  a  secret 
diplomacy,  which  aims  to  keep  from  the  knowledge  of  the  people  the 
operations  of  the  Government.  This  system  is  inconsistent  with  the 
character  of  our  institutions,  and  is  itself  yielding  gradually  to  a 
more  enlightened  public  opinion,  and  to  the  power  of  a  free  press, 
which,  by  its  broad  dissemination  of  political  intelligence,  secures  in 
advance  to  the  side  of  justice  the  judgment  of  the  civilized  world. 
An  honest,  firm,  and  open  policy  in  our  foreign  relations  would  com- 
mand the  united  support  of  the  nation,  whose  deliberate  opinions  it 
would  necessarily  reflect. 

Nothing  is  clearer  in  the  history  of  our  institutions  than  the  de- 
sign of  the  nation,  in  asserting  its  own  independence  and  freedom,  to 
avoid  giving  countenance  to  the  extension  of  slavery.  The  influence 
of  the  small  but  compact  and  powerful  class  of  men  interested  in 
slavery,  who  command  one  section  of  the  country,  and  wield  a  vast 
political  control  as  a  consequence  in  the  other,  is  now  directed  to  turn 
back  this  impulse  of  the  Revolution,  and  reverse  its  principles.  The 
extension  of  slavery  across  the  continent  is  the  object  of  the  power 
which  now  rules  the  Government;  and  from  this  spirit  have  sprung 
those  kindred  wrongs  in  Kansas  so  truly  portrayed  in  one  of  your 
resolutions,  which  prove  that  the  elements  of  the  most  arbitrary 
governments  have  not  been  vanquished  by  the  just  theory  of  our  own. 

It  would  be  out  of  place  here  to  pledge  myself  to  any  particular 
policy  that  has  been  suggested  to  terminate  the  sectional  contro- 
versy engendered  by  political  animosities,  operating  on  a  powerful 
class  banded  together  by  a  common  interest.  A  practical  remedy  is 
the  admission  of  Kansas  into  the  Union  as  a  Free  State.  The  South 
should,  in  my  judgment,  earnestly  desire  such  consummation.  It 
would  vindicate  its  good  faith — it  would  correct  the  mistake  of  the 
repeal;  and  the  North,  having  practically  the  benefit  of  the  agree- 
ment between  the  two  sections,  would  be  satisfied,  and  good  feeling 
be  restored.  The  measure  is  perfectly  consistent  with  the  honor  of 
the  South,  and  vital  to  its  interests.  That  fatal  act  which  gave  birth 
to  this  purely  sectional  strife,  originating  in  the  scheme  to  take  from 
free  labor  the  country  secured  to  it  by  a  solemn  covenant,  can  not  be 
too  soon  disarmed  of  its  pernicious  force. 

The  only  genial  region  of  the  middle  latitudes  left  to  the  emi- 
grants of  the  Northern  States  for  homes  can  not  be  conquered  from 
the  free  laborers,  who  have  long  considered  it  as  set  apart  for  them 


80  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

in  our  inheritance,  without  provoking  a  desperate  struggle.  What- 
ever may  be  the  persistence  of  the  particular  class  which  seems  ready 
to  hazard  everything  for  the  success  of  the  unjust  scheme  it  has  par- 
tially effected,  I  firmly  believe  that  the  great  heart  of  the  nation, 
which  throbs  with  the  patriotism  of  the  free  men  of  both  sections, 
will  have  power  to  overcome  it.  They  will  look  to  the  rights  secured 
to  them  by  the  Constitution  of  the  Union,  as  their  best  safeguard  from 
the  oppression  of  the  class  which — by  a  monopoly  of  the  soil,  and  of 
slave  labor  to  till  it — might,  in  time,  reduce  them  to  the  extremity  of 
laboring  upon  the  same  terms  with  the  slaves.  The  great  body  of 
non-slaveholding  freemen,  including  those  of  the  South,  upon  whose 
welfare  slavery  is  an  oppression,  will  discover  that  the  power  of  the 
general  Government  over  the  public  lands  may  be  beneficially  exerted 
to  advance  their  interests  and  secure  their  independence.  Knowing 
this,  their  suffrages  will  not  be  wanting  to  maintain  that  authority 
in  the  Union  which  is  absolutely  essential  to  the  maintenance  of  their 
own  liberties,  and  which  has  more  than  once  indicated  the  purpose 
of  disposing  of  the  public  lands  in  such  a  way  as  would  make  every 
settler  upon  them  a  freeholder. 

If  the  people  intrust  to  me  the  administration  of  the  Government, 
the  laws  of  Congress  in  relation  to  the  Territories  shall  be  faithfully 
executed.  All  its  authority  shall  be  exerted  in  aid  of  the  national 
will  to  re-establish  the  peace  of  the  country  on  the  just  principles 
which  have  heretofore  received  the  sanction  of  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment, of  the  States,  and  of  the  people  of  both  sections.  Such  a  policy 
would  leave  no  aliment  to  that  sectional  party  which  seeks  its  ag- 
grandizement by  appropriating  the  new  Territories  to  capital  in  the 
form  of  slavery,  but  would  inevitably  result  in  the  triumph  of  free 
labor — the  natural  capital  which  constitutes  the  real  wealth  of  this 
great  country,  and  creates  that  intelligent  power  in  the  masses  alone 
to  be  relied  on  as  the  bulwark  of  free  institutions. 

Trusting  that  I  have  a  heart  capable  of  comprehending  our  whole 
country,  with  its  varied  interests,  and  confident  that  patriotism  ex- 
ists in  all  parts  of  the  Union,  I  accept  the  nomination  of  your  conven- 
tion, in  the  hope  that  I  may  be  enabled  to  serve  usefully  its  cause, 
which  I  consider  the  cause  of  constitutional  freedom. 
Very  respectfully  your  obedient  servant, 

J.  C.  FREMONT. 

REPUBLICAN  PLATFORM  OF  1860. 

Kesolved,  That  we,  the  delegated  representatives  of  the  Republi- 
can electors  of  the  United  States,  in  convention  assembled,  in  dis- 


DOCUMENTARY   HISTORY   OF  THE   EPOCH.  81 

charge  of  the  duty  we  owe  to  our  constituents  and  our  country,  unite 
in  the  following  declarations: 

1.  That  the  history  of  the  nation,  during  the  last  four  years,  has 
fully  established  the  propriety  and  necessity  of  the  organization  and 
perpetuation  of  the  Republican  party,  and  that  the  causes  which 
called  it  into  existence  are  permanent  in  their  nature,  and  now,  more 
than  ever  before,  demand  its  peaceful  and  constitutional  triumph. 

2.  That  the  maintenance  of  the  principles  promulgated  in  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  and  embodied  in  the  Federal  Constitu- 
tion— "  that  all  men  are  created  equal;  that  they  are  endowed  by  their 
Creator  with  certain  inalienable  rights;  that  among  these  are  life, 
liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness;  that,  to  secure  these  rights, 
governments  are  instituted  among  men,  deriving  their  just  powers 
from  the  consent  of  the  governed  "•  —is  essential  to  the  preservation  of 
our  institutions;  and  that  the  Federal  Constitution,  the  rights  of  the 
States,  and  the  union  of  the  States,  must  and  shall  be  preserved. 

3.  That  to  the  union  of  the  States  this  nation  owes  its  unprece- 
dented increase  in  population,  its  surprising  development  of  material 
resources,  its  rapid  augmentation  of  wealth,  its  happiness  at  home, 
and  its  honor  abroad;  and  we  hold  in  abhorrence  all  schemes  for  dis- 
union, come  from  whatever  source  they  may;  and  we  congratulate  the 
country  that  no  Republican  member  of  Congress  has  uttered  or  coun- 
tenanced the  threats  of  disunion  so  often  made  by  Democratic  mem- 
bers, without  rebuke  and  with  applause  from  their  political  associ- 
ates; and  we  denounce  those  threats  of  disunion,  in  case  of  a  popular 
overthrow  of  their  ascendency,  as  denying  the  vital  principles  of  a 
free  government,  and  as  an  avowal  of  contemplated  treason,  which 
it  is  the  imperative  duty  of  an  indignant  people  sternly  to  rebuke  and 
forever  silence. 

4.  That  the  maintenance  inviolate  of  the  rights  of  the  States,  and 
especially  the  right  of  each  State  to  order  and  control  its  own  domes- 
tic institutions  according  to  its  own  judgment  exclusively,  is  essen- 
tial to  that  balance  of  power  on  which  the  perfection  and  endurance 
of  our  political  fabric  depends;  and  we  denounce  the  lawless  inva- 
sion by  armed  force  of  the  soil  of  any  State  or  Territory,  no  matter 
under  what  pretext,  as  among  the  gravest  of  crimes. 

5.  That  the  present  Democratic  administration  has  far  exceeded 
our  worst  apprehensions,  in  its  measureless  subserviency  to  the  ex- 
actions of  a  sectional  interest,  as  especially  evinced  in  its  desperate 
exertions  to  force  the  infamous  Lecompton  Constitution  upon  the 
protesting  people  of  Kansas;  in  construing  the  personal  relation  be- 
tween master  and  servant  to  involve  an  unqualified  property  in  per- 
son; in  its  attempted  enforcement,  everywhere,  on  land  and  sea, 


82  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

through  the  intervention  of  Congress  and  of  the  Federal  courts,  of 
the  extreme  pretensions  of  a  purely  local  interest;  and  in  its  general 
and  unvarying  abuse  of  the  power  intrusted  to  it  by  a  confiding 
people. 

6.  That  the  people  justly  view  with  alarm  the  reckless  extrava- 
gance which  pervades  every  department  of  the  Federal  Government; 
that  a  return  to  rigid  economy  and  accountability  is  indispensable  to 
arrest  the  sympathetic  plunder  of  the  public  treasury  by  favored  par- 
tisans; while  the  recent  startling  developments  of  frauds  and  corrup- 
tions at  the  Federal  metropolis  show  that  an  entire  change  of  ad- 
ministration is  imperatively  demanded. 

7.  That  the  new  dogma  that  the  Constitution,  of  its  own  force, 
carries  slavery  into  any  or  all  of  the  Territories  of  the  United  States, 
is  a  dangerous  political  heresy,  at  variance  with  the  explicit  provi- 
sions of  that  instrument  itself,  with  contemporaneous  exposition,  and 
with  legislative  and  judicial  precedent;  is  revolutionary  in  its  tend- 
ency, and  subversive  of  the  peace  and  harmony  of  the  country. 

8.  That  the  normal  condition  of  all  the  territory  of  the  United 
States  is  that  of  freedom;  that  as  our  Republican  fathers,  when  they 
had  abolished  slavery  in  all  our  national  territory,  ordained  that  no 
person  should  be  deprived  of  life,  liberty,  or  property  without  due 
process  of  law,  it  becomes  our  duty,  by  legislation,  whenever  such 
legislation  is  necessary,  to  maintain  this  provision  of  the  Constitution 
against  all  attempts  to  violate  it;  and  we  deny  the  authority  of  Con- 
gress, of  a  Territorial  Legislature,  or  of  any  individual,  to  give  legal 
existence  to  slavery  in  any  Territory  of  the  United  States. 

9.  That  we  brand  the  recent  reopening  of  the  American  slave 
trade,  under  the  cover  of  our  national  flag,  aided  by  perversions  of 
judicial  power,  as  a  crime  against  humanity,  and  a  burning  shame  to 
our  country  and  age;  and  we  call  upon  Congress  to  take  prompt  and 
efficient  measures  for  the  total  and  final  suppression  of  that  execrable 
traffic. 

10.  That  in  the  recent  vetoes,  by  their  Federal  Governors,  of  the 
acts  of  the  Legislatures  of  Kansas  and  Nebraska,  prohibiting  slavery 
in  those  Territories,  we  find  a  practical  illustration  of  the  boasted 
Democratic  principle  of  non-intervention  and  popular  sovereignty, 
embodied  in  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill,  and  a  demonstration  of  the 
deception  and  fraud  involved  therein. 

11.  That  Kansas  should  of  right  be  immediately  admitted  as  a 
State  under  the  Constitution  recently  formed  and  adopted  by  her 
people  and  accepted  by  the  House  of  Representatives. 

12.  That,  while  providing  revenue  for  the  support  of  the  general 
government  by  duties  upon  imports,  sound  policy  requires  such  an 


DOCUMENTARY   HISTORY   OF   THE   EPOCH.  83 

adjustment  of  these  imposts  as  to  encourage  the  development  of  the 
industrial  interests  of  the  whole  country;  and  we  commend  that 
policy  of  national  exchanges  which  secures  to  the  workingmen  liberal 
wages,  to  agriculture  remunerating  prices,  to  mechanics  and  manu- 
facturers an  adequate  reward  for  their  skill,  labor,  and  enterprise, 
and  to  the  nation  commercial  prosperity  and  independence. 

13.  That  we  protest  against  any  sale  or  alienation  to  others  of 
the  public  lands  held  by  actual  settlers,  and  against  any  view  of  the 
free-homestead  policy  which  regards  the  settlers  as  paupers  or  sup- 
pliants for  public  bounty;  and  wre  demand  the  passage  by  Congress 
of  the  complete  and  satisfactory  homestead  measure  which  has  al- 
ready passed  the  House. 

14.  That  the  Republican  party  is  opposed  to  any  change  in  our 
naturalization  laws,  or  any  State  legislation  by  which  the  rights  of 
citizenship  hitherto  accorded  to  immigrants  from  foreign  lands  shall 
be  abridged  or  impaired;  and  in  favor  of  giving  a  full  and  efficient 
protection  to  the  rights  of  all  classes  of  citizens,  whether  native  or 
naturalized,  both  at  home  and  abroad. 

15.  That  appropriations  by  Congress  for  river  and  harbor  im- 
provements of  a  national  character,  required  for  the  accommodation 
and  security  of  our  existing  commerce,  are  authorized  by  the  Consti- 
tution, and  justified  by  the  obligations  of  government  to  protect  the 
lives  and  property  of  its  citizens. 

16.  That   a   railroad   to  the   Pacific   Ocean   is   imperatively   de- 
manded by  the  interests  of  the  whole  country ;  that  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment ought  to  render  immediate  and  efficient  aid  in  its  construc- 
tion; and  that,  as  preliminary  thereto,  a  daily  overland  mail  should 
be  promptly  established. 

17.  Finally,  having  thus  set  forth  our  distinctive  principles  and 
views,  we  invite  the  co-operation  of  all  citizens,  however  differing  on 
other  questions,  who  substantially  agree  with  us  in  their  affirmance 
and  support. 

MR.  LINCOLN'S  LETTER  OF  ACCEPTANCE. 

Springfield,  111.,  May  23,  1860. 
HON.  GEORGE  ASHMUN. 

President  of  the  Republican  National  Convention. 
SIR:  I  accept  the  nomination  tendered  me  by  the  Convention  over 
which  you  presided,  and  of  which  I  am  formally  apprised  in  the 
letter  of  yourself  and  others,  acting  as  a  Committee  of  the  Conven- 
tion, for  that  purpose. 

The  declaration  of  principles  and  sentiments  which  accompanies 


84  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

your  letter  meets  my  approval;  and  it  shall  be  my  care  not  to  violate 
or  disregard  it  in  any  part. 

Imploring  the  assistance  of  Divine  Providence,  and  with  due  re- 
gard to  the  views  and  feelings  of  all  who  were  represented  in  the 
Convention;  to  the  rights  of  all  the  States  and  Territories  and  people 
of  the  nation;  to  the  inviolability  of  the  Constitution,  and  the  per- 
petual union,  harmony,  and  prosperity  of  all.  I  am  now  happy  to 
co-operate  for  the  practical  success  of  the  principles  declared  by  the 
Convention. 

Your  obliged  friend  and  fellow-citizen, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


THE  WAR  PERIOD. 
I. 

SECESSION. 

The  Conspiracy  in  the  Cabinet  —Buchanan's  Last  Annual  Message- 
Judge  Black — Reconstruction  of  the  Cabinet — Disintegration 
of  the  Thirty-sixth  Congress — Efforts  at  Compromise  in  Congress 
—Concessions  of  the  North— An  "  Embassy  "  from  South  Caro- 
lina— The  Peace  Convention — Responsibility  of  the  Republican 
Party — Demoralization  of  Northern  Sentiment — Fears  of  Con- 
spiracies— The  Electoral  Count — Lincoln's  Unexpected  Appear- 
ance in  Washington. 


HE  secession  conspiracy  that  followed  immediately  after 
Lincoln's  election  was  essentially  a  part  of  the  Breckin- 
ridge  campaign.  The  cabal  centered,  if  it  did  not  originate, 
in  President  Buchanan's  Cabinet.  The  Cabinet  conspira- 
tors were  Howell  Cobb,  of  Georgia,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury;  John 
B.  Floyd,  of  Virginia,  Secretary  of  War;  and  Jacob  Thompson,  of 
Mississippi,  Secretary  of  the  Interior.  Intimately  associated  with 
them  was  William  H.  Trescott,  of  South  Carolina,  Assistant  Secretary 
of  State.  Trescott  acted  as  a  sort  of  go-between  for  the  conspirators 
in  the  South  and  the  conspirators  in  the  Cabinet.  Five  days  before 
the  Presidential  election  he  wrote  to  Robert  Barnwell  Rhett,  with 
the  authorization  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  "  that  upon  the 
election  of  Lincoln  Georgia  ought  to  secede  from  the  Union,  and  that 
she  will  do  so.  ...  But  he  desires  me  to  impress  upon  you  his 
conviction  that  any  attempt  to  precipitate  the  actual  issue  upon  this 
administration  will  be  most  mischievous — calculated  to  produce  dif- 
ferences of  opinion  and  destroy  unanimity."  Secretary  Floyd  was 
even  then  negotiating  with  agents  of  some  of  the  Southern  States  for 
a  sale  of  muskets  belonging  to  the  United  States.  Mr.  Buchanan  was 
not  in  ignorance  of  the  attitude  of  the  three  conspirators  in  his  Cab- 
inet, with  the  possible  exception  of  Floyd.  Secretary  Cobb  told  him 
three  days  after  the  election  that  he  thought  "  disunion  inevitable, 
and  under  present  circumstances  most  desirable."  Secretary  Thomp- 
son objected  to  the  President's  proposed  message,  when  it  was  shown 
to  the  Cabinet  on  the  10th  of  November,  because,  as  Floyd  recorded 
his  objection,  he  "  misses  entirely  the  temper  of  the  Southern  people; 
and  attacks  the  true  State-rights  doctrine  on  the  subject  of  secession." 


86  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

Secretary  Floyd  expressed  himself  decidedly  opposed  to  any  rash 
movement.  "  I  did  so,"  he  said,  "  because  I  think  that  Lincoln's  ad- 
ministration will  fail,  and  be  regarded  as  impotent  for  good  or  evil 
within  four  months  after  his  inauguration."  As  he  was  then  selling 
muskets,  altered  from  flint  to  percussion  by  the  Ordnance  Depart- 
ment, to  the  Southern  States,  his  prudence  must  be  regarded  as  rather 
sinister.  An  essential  part  of  the  conspiracy  at  this  time  was  tne 
blind  adhesion  of  Isaac  Toucey,  of  Connecticut,  Secretary  of  the 
Navy,  who  told  the  President  only  three  days  after  Lincoln's  election 
that  "  retaliatory  State  measures  would  prove  most  availing  in  bring- 
ing Northern  fanatics  to  their  senses."  Secretary  Toucey  wras  useful 
to  the  South  in  placing  the  United  States  Navy  beyond  reach  of  the 
incoming  administration,  in  anticipation  of  secession.  It  is  scarcely 
surprising,  with  revolution  thus  organized  in  his  Cabinet  with  his 
knowledge,  that  the  President  finally  announced  to  Congress  the 
remarkable  paradox  that  while  a  State  has  no  right  to  secede,  the 
Union  has  no  right  to  coerce  a  seceding  State. 

President  Buchanan's  last  annual  message  to  Congress  was  an  ex- 
traordinary document — a  message  of  which  the  London  Times  said 
truly  a  month  later,  that  "  it  was  a  greater  blow  to  the  American 
people  than  all  the  rants  of  the  Georgian  Governor  or  the  ordinances 
of  the  Charleston  Convention.  The  President  has  dissipated  the  idea 
that  the  States  which  elected  him  constitute  one  people."  In  this  ex- 
traordinary message  Mr.  Buchanan  informed  Congress  that  "  the  long- 
continued  and  intemperate  interference  of  the  Northern  people  with 
the  question  of  slavery  in  the  Southern  States  has  at  last  produced 
its  natural  effect."  His  conception  of  this  effect  existed  only  in  his 
own  imagination.  "  The  feeling  of  peace  at  home,"  he  said,  "  has 
given  place  to  apprehension  of  servile  insurrections,  and  many  a 
matron  throughout  the  South  retires  at  night  in  dread  of  what  may 
befall  herself  and  her  children  before  morning."  Mr.  Buchanan  was 
not  entirely  convinced  that  the  election  of  Mr.  Lincoln  justified  seces- 
sion. "  The  election  of  any  one  of  our  fellowr-citizens  to  the  office  of 
President,"  he  declared,  with  an  unctuous  complacency  that  was  un- 
affected, "  does  not  of  itself  afford  just  cause  for  dissolving  the 
Union."  Then  he  added  a  qualification  that  was  even  more  unctuous 
and  extraordinary.  "  This  is  more  especially  true,"  he  continued,  "  if 
his  election  has  been  effected  by  a  mere  plurality,  and  not  a  majority, 
of  the  people,  and  has  resulted  from  transient  and  temporary  causes, 
which  may  probably  never  occur  again."  He  then  discussed  the  al- 
leged grievances  of  the  South,  and  conceded  the  "  wrongs  "  of  the 
Slave  States.  "  The  Southern  States,  standing  on  the  basis  of  the 
Constitution,"  he  argued,  after  urging  the  repeal  of  so-called  "  per- 


SECESSION. 


87 


sonal  liberty  laws  "  in  some  of  the  States,  "  have  a  right  to  demand 
this  act  of  justice  from  the  States  of  the  North.  Should  it  be  refused, 
then  the  Constitution  to  which  all  the  States  are  parties,  will  have 
been  willfully  violated  by  one  portion  of  them  in  a  provision  essential 
to  the  domestic  security  and  happiness  of  the  remainder.  In  that 
event,  the  injured  States,  after  having  used  all  peaceful  and  consti- 
tutional means  to  obtain  redress,  would  be  justified  in  revolutionary 
resistance  to  the  government  of  the  Union."  After  this  admission 
his  argument  against  the  assumption  by  any  State  of  an  inherent 
right  to  secede  at  its  own  will  and  pleasure  was  alike  fatal  to  his 
own  administration  and  to  the  Union.  It  was  all  the  extremists  of 
the  South  desired.  The  President  had  practically  conceded  the  duty, 
if  not  the  right  of  secession,  and  the  conspirators  in  his  own  Cabinet 
and  in  Congress  proceeded  to  use  the  weap- 
on he  had  placed  in  their  hands. 

It  was  at  first  believed  that  these  de- 
structive doctrines  had  the  approbation  of 
Mr.  Buchanan's  entire  Cabinet,  but  it  was 
not  long  until  General  Cass,  the  venerable 
Secretary  of  State,  and  Jeremiah  S.  Black, 
the  learned  and  able  Attorney-General, 
realized  the  false  position  in  which  the 
President  had  placed  them.  When  it  be- 
came known  that  Mr.  Buchanan  would  not 
insist  upon  the  collection  of  the  national 
revenue  in  South  Carolina,  or  upon 
strengthening  the  United  States  forts  in 
Charleston  harbor,  Cass  determined  to 
separate  from  the  administration.  He 
resigned  on  the  12th  of  December,  only  nine 

days  after  the  fatal  message  was  sent  to  Congress.  Thereupon  Black 
was  called  upon  to  succeed  him  in  the  Department  of  State.  Judge 
Black  was  a  remarkable  character.  His  literary  and  legal  acquire- 
ments were  prodigious.  As  a  lawyer  he  was  at  the  head  of  the 
American  bar;  as  a  jurist  he  had  never  had  a  superior  on  the  Ameri- 
can bench.  He  was  a  man  of  broad  views,  profound  convictions,  and 
ineradicable  prejudices.  He  made  distinctions  in  the  line  of  conduct 
that  he  marked  out  for  himself  and  the  practice  of  others.  His  own 
conscience  would  not  have  permitted  him  to  hold  a  man  in  bondage, 
but  he  saw  no  reason  for  rebuking  the  holding  of  slaves  by  those 
whose  consciences  approved  of  it.  He  regarded  the  South  with  affec- 
tion, and  for  New  England  he  had  a  detestation  that  was  racial 
rather  than  personal.  "  The  New  Englander  individually  I  greatly 


JEREMIAH    S.    BLACK. 


88  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

affect,"  he  often  said,  "  but  in  the  mass  I  judge  them  to  be  stark  mad." 
The  Southern  fire-eaters  he  regarded  as  the  victims  of  Northern 
Abolitionists,  and  while  he  deprecated  disunion  in  the  South,  he 
looked  upon  the  doctrines  of  the  Republican  party  as  inconsistent 
with  loyalty  to  the  Union.  Some  of  the  wrorst  features  of  Mr.  Bu- 
chanan's message  were  due  to  his  suggestion,  and  had  he  continued 
as  Attorney-General  until  the  close  of  the  administration  it  is  not 
likely  he  would  have  revised  the  conclusions  on  which  these  features 
were  based.  For  Buchanan  he  had  an  attachment  that  begun  with 
his  youth,  and  had  grown  with  his  growth.  Buchanan's  fame  was 
as  dear  to  him  as  his  own.  But  he  was  not  subservient,  and  when  he 
was  confronted  by  conditions  that  his  judgment  and  his  conscience 
rejected,  he  had  the  courage  to  oppose  them.  Judge  Black  succeeded 
Cass  as  Secretary  of  State  on  the  17th  of  December — the  day  when 
the  Disunion  Convention  assembled  at  Charleston.  Three  days  later 
the  Ordinance  of  Secession  was  passed,  and  Black  was  only  in  his 
fourth  day  in  the  State  Department  when  Governor  Pickens  pro- 
claimed South  Carolina  a  separate,  free,  sovereign,  and  independent 
State.  From  that  moment  there  was  a  new  power  in  the  White  House. 
The  demand  for  the  surrender  of  the  forts  of  the  United  States  to 
South  Carolina  was  refused.  The  disunion  conspirators  in  the  Cab- 
inet found  their  positions  untenable,  and  resigned  in  quick  succes- 
sion. Floyd  was  the  first  to  go,  and  he  was  succeeded  by  Joseph 
Holt,  of  Mississippi,  as  Secretary  of  War.  Thompson  followed  Floyd, 
but  not  immediately.  Cobb  had  gone  to  Georgia  before  the  resigna- 
tion of  Cass  to  stimulate  secession,  and  Philip  Francis  Thomas,  of 
Maryland,  succeeded  him.  A  complete  reorganization  of  the  Cabinet 
became  necessary.  Edwin  M.  Stanton  succeeded  Black  as  Attorney- 
General,  and  Horatio  King,  of  Maine,,  became  the  successor  of  Holt 
as  Postmaster-General.  Refusing  to  accede  to  the  new  policy,  Thomas 
resigned,  and  was  succeeded  by  John  A.  Dix.  Thus  two  months  after 
the  election  of  Lincoln  the  Cabinet  was  reconstituted  as  it  ought  to 
have  been  reconstituted  on  the  7th  of  November. 

The  disintegration  of  the  36th  Congress  began  with  the  withdrawal 
of  the  South  Carolina  delegation  from  the  House  of  Representatives 
on  the  24th  of  December.  The  withdrawal  of  the  other  States  fol- 
lowed in  the  order  of  their  secession.  In  the  House  the  leavetaking 
was  in  the  main  without  defiance,  and,  except  in  a  few  cases,  without 
any  show  of  bravado.  The  retiring  Senators  from  the  seceding 
States  were  more  outspoken,  the  Senate  affording  a  better  field  than 
the  House  for  valedictories  of  justification  and  recrimination.  Among 
the  most  inflammatory  of  these  speeches  were  those  of  Clement  C. 
Clay,  Jr.,  of  Alabama;  Jefferson  Davis,  of  Mississippi;  Alfred  Iverson, 


SECESSION.  89 

of  Georgia,  and  John  Slidell,  of  Louisiana.  In  the  mean  time  numer- 
ous propositions  of  compromise  were  before  Congress,  all  of  which 
humiliated  the  North  without  appeasing  the  South.  In  the  Senate  a 
Committee  of  Thirteen,  comprising  seven  Democrats,  five  Republicans, 
and  the  venerable  John  J.  Crittenden,  of  Kentucky,  who  belonged  to 

1/7  tJ 

neither  party,  was  appointed  to  devise  measures  of  conciliation, 
through  which  a  dissolution  of  the  Union  might  be  averted.  In  the 
House  a  similar  Committee  of  Thirty-three,  with  Thomas  Corwin,  of 
Ohio,  as  chairman,  wras  intrusted  with  a  like  task.  The  Senate  Com- 
mittee of  Thirteen  came  to  no  agreement,  but  the  House  Committee 
of  Thirty-three  made  a  report  that  embodied  nearly  every  objection- 
able suggestion  submitted  to  it. 

The  recommendations  embraced  everything  the  South  had  ever 
asked,  and  more.  The  Free  States  were 
to  repeal  all  their  "  personal  liberty 
laws  ";  New  Mexico,  which  included  the 
present  Territory  of  Arizona,  was  to  be 
admitted  as  a  Slave  State;  it  was  pro- 
posed still  further  to  amend  the  Fugi 
tive  Slave  Law  so  as  to  provide  for  the 
trial  of  an  alleged  runawray  in  the  State 
from  which  it  was  claimed  he  had  es- 
caped, and  his  surrender  without  trial  in 
the  State  in  which  he  was  found;  and 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
was  to  be  amended  so  as  to  render  it- 
impossible  to  abolish  slavery  in  any 
State  without  the  consent  of  every  State  JOHN  ,i.  CRITTENDEN. 

in  the  Union.  But  even  these  conces- 
sions, sweeping  as  they  were,  were  not  considered  a  sufficient  price  for 
a  preserved  Union,  and  a  minority  of  the  Committee  of  Thirty-three, 
consisting  of  five  Southern  members,  made  a  report  in  which  they 
proposed  six  amendments  which,  if  adopted,  would  have  placed 
slavery  under  the  guardianship  and  protection  of  the  National  Gov- 
ernment. These  six  propositions  were:  (1)  That  in  all  the  territory 
south  of  the  old  Missouri  line,  then  held  or  to  be  afterward  acquired, 
slavery  of  the  African  race  was  to  be  recognized  as  existing,  not  to  be 
interfered  with  by  Congress,  but  to  be  protected  by  all  the  depart- 
ments of  the  Territorial  Government  during  its  existence;  (2)  that  Con- 
gress should  have  no  power  to  interfere  with  slavery  even  in  those 
places  under  its  exclusive  jurisdiction  in  the  Slave  States;  (3)  that  Con- 
gress should  never  interfere  with  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia 
without  the  consent  of  Maryland  and  Virginia  and  the  inhabitants  of 


90  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

the  District,  nor  without  just  compensation  for  the  slaves,  and  even 
denying  to  Congress  the  right  to  prohibit  officers  of  the  General  Gov- 
ernment and  members  from  bringing  their  slaves  to  the  District,  hold- 
ing them  there,  and  taking  them  away  again;  (4)  that  Congress 
should  not  interfere  with  the  transportation  of  slaves  from  one  State 
to  another,  or  to  any  territory  south  of  the  Missouri  line,  whether 
that  transportation  be  by  land,  by  navigable  river,  or  by  sea;  (5)  that 
it  should  be  the  duty  of  Congress  to  provide  for  the  payment  from  the 
National  Treasury  for  any  fugitive  slave  whose  arrest  was  prevented 
by  violence  or  intimidation,  or  who,  after  arrest,  wras  rescued  by  force; 
and  (6)  that  "  no  future  amendment  to  the  Constitution  shall  ever  be 
passed  that  shall  affect  any  provision  of  the  five  amendments  just  re- 
cited; that  the  provision  in  the  original  Constitution  which  guaran- 
tees the  count  of  three-fifths  of  the  slaves  in  the  basis  of  representa- 
tion shall  never  be  changed  by  any  amendment;  that  no  amendment 
shall  ever  be  made  which  alters  or  impairs  the  original  provision  for 
the  recovery  of  fugitives  from  service;  that  no  amendment  shall  ever 
be  made  that  shall  permit  Congress  to  interfere  in  any  way  with 
slavery  in  the  States  where  it  may  be  permitted."  These  extraordi- 
nary propositions  were  substantially  identical  with  the  vaunted  Crit- 
tenden  Compromise,  the  failure  of  which  is  still  a  matter  for  regret 
with  Democratic  historians. 

The  Crittenden  Compromise  was  the  most  nefarious  measure  ever 
proposed  in  the  history  of  Congress.  The  intrenchment  of  slavery  in 
the  Constitution  and  the  subordination  of  the  Free  States  to  the  con- 
stitutional rights  of  the  slavehunters  were  not  its  worst  features.  It 
looked  to  the  acquisition  of  Cuba,  of  Mexico,  and  of  South  America 
as  slave  territory.  It  was  the  greatest  temptation  ever  offered  to 
the  slave  power  for  the  indefinite  expansion  of  slavery  within  the 
Union.  Even  Jefferson  Davis  was  dazzled  by  the  splendid  prospect 
it  held  out  for  Southern  aggrandizement.  He  lingered  in  the  Senate 
even  after  Mississippi  had  seceded,  and  it  was  only  after  the  failure 
of  the  Crittenden  propositions  that  he  withdrew.  Toombs,  too,  is 
quoted  as  one  of  the  Southern  Senators  who  would  have  given  it  a 
reluctant  assent.  "  Mr.  Toombs,  will  this  compromise,  as  a  remedy 
for  all  wrongs  and  apprehensions,  be  acceptable  to  you?"  Mr.  Crit- 
tenden asked  him  while  they  sat  together  in  the  Senate  Committee 
of  Thirteen.  "  Not  by  a  good  deal,"  he  answered ;  "  but  my  State  will 
accept  it,  and  I  will  follow  my  State."  But  neither  Davis  nor  Toombs 
would  have  accepted  the  Crittenden  Compromise  as  a  finality.  In 
the  Committee  of  Thirteen  Mr.  Davis  submitted  a  proposition  for  a 
constitutional  amendment  providing  for  a  recognition  of  property 
in  slaves  in  any  State  in  the  Union,  and  not  subject  to  be  diverted  or 


SECESSION.  91 

impaired  by  the  local  law  of  any  State  "  either  in  escape  thereto,  or  of 
transit  or  sojourn  of  the  owner  therein."  This  proposition  contem- 
plated the  introduction  of  slavery  into  the  Free  States,  but  notwith- 
standing this  it  received  the  votes  of  two  Northern  Senators  in  the 
committee — Bigler,  of  Pennsylvania,  and  Rice,  of  Minnesota.  These 
two  were  the  only  Northern  Democrats  in  the  Committee  of  Thir- 
teen, with  the  exception  of  Mr.  Douglas,  who  did  not  vote  on  the  Davis 
proposition.  Had  the  South  accepted  the  Crittenden  Compromise, 
there  would  have  been  a  demand  later  for  a  Union  all  slave,  and,  as  is 
shown  by  the  vote  on  the  Davis  proposition,  the  demand  would  have 
had  the  support  of  a  part  of  the  Northern  Democracy. 

In  the  House  of  Representatives  the  most  important  of  the  recom- 
mendations of  the  Committee  of  Thirty-three  received  affirmative 
action.  The  propositions  to  admit  New  Mexico  as  a  Slave  State  and 
to  amend  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  were  adopted,  and  even  a  constitu- 
tional amendment  declaring  that  "no  amendment  shall  be  made  to 
the  Constitution  which  will  authorize  or  give  to  Congress  the  power 
to  abolish,  or  interfere,  within  any  State,  with  the  domestic  institu- 
tions thereof,  including  that  of  persons  held  to  labor  or  service  by  the 
law  of  said  State,"  was  adopted  by  a  vote  of  133  to  65.  This  was  to 
have  been  the  Thirteenth  Amendment  to  the  Constitution.  If  adopted, 
this  amendment  would  have  been  only  less  far-reaching  than  that  of 
the  Crittenden  Compromise.  Among  the  Republicans  in  the  30th  Con- 
gress, who  would  have  consented  to  the  intrenchment  of  slavery  in 
the  organic  law,  were  Mr.  Sherman,  of  Ohio;  Mr.  Colfax,  of  Indiana; 
Charles  Francis  Adams,  of  Massachusetts;  Mr.  Howard,  of  Michigan; 
Mr.  Windom,  of  Minnesota,  and  Messrs.  Moorhead  and  McPherson, 
of  Pennsylvania.  Among  those  who  refused  to  yield  to  the  fears  of 
the  weaker  brethren  were  Thaddeus  Stevens  and  Galusha  A.  Grow, 
of  Pennsylvania;  Roscoe  Conkling  and  Reuben  E.  Fenton,  of  New 
York;  Marston  and  Tappan,  of  New  Hampshire;  Anson  Burlingame, 
of  Massachusetts,  and  the  two  Washburns,  one  of  Massachusetts  and 
the  other  of  Wisconsin.  When  the  proposition  reached  the  Senate 
eight  Republican  Senators  voted  for  it— Anthony,  of  Rhode  Island; 
Baker,  of  Oregon;  Dixon  and  Foster,  of  Connecticut;  Grimes  and  Har- 
lan,  of  Iowa;  Morrill,  of  Maine,  and  Ten  Eyck,  of  New  Jersey.  Only 
twelve  out  of  the  twenty-five  Republican  Senators  voted  in  the  nega- 
tive. Seward,  Fessenden,  and  Collamer  did  not  vote.  Although  it 
received  the  sanction  of  both  Houses  of  Congress,  this  amendment 
came  to  nothing,  being  lost  sight  of  in  the  burning  questions  of  the 
Civil  War.  No  better  proof  of  the  utter  demoralization  of  the  Repub- 
lican party,  that  followed  the  Republican  triumph  of  I860,  can  be 
found  than  the  willingness  of  nearly  every  Republican  Senator  and 


92  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

Representative  in  the  36th  Congress  to  admit  New  Mexico  as  a  Slave 
State,  and  to  organize  the  Territories  of  Colorado,  Dakota,  and  Nev- 
ada without  prohibiting  slavery.  The  hour  of  conciliation  only  failed 
to  become  one  of  surrender  because  the  South  was  bent  upon  seces- 
sion, and  declined  to  accept  the  sacrifice.  Strange  as  it  may  sound, 
the  North  and  the  Republican  party  owed  to  the  recklessness  of  dis- 
union an  escape  from  the  humiliation  of  consenting  to  make  the 
United  States  a  Slave  Empire,  with  slavers  on  the  ocean,  and  wars 
of  conquest  for  the  acquisition  of  slave  territory. 

There  were  some  episodes  of  the  winter  of  1860-61  in  Washington 
that  seem  very  ludicrous  now,  but  were  regarded  with  great  serious- 
ness then.  One  of  these  episodes  was  the  appearance  at  the  capital 
of  an  "  embassy  "  from  the  sovereign  and  independent  State  of  South 
Carolina  to  negotiate  a  treaty  of  peaceful  surrender  of  the  armed 
fortresses  and  other  property  of  the  United  States  within  the  limits 
of  the  new  sovereignty.  This  "  embassy  "  came  to  Washington  with 
as  funny  a  Secretary  of  Legation  as  ever  danced  and  flirted  in  the 
court  circles  of  Europe.  He  was  a  very  young  person,  and  not  at  all 
imposing.  He  wore  patent  leather  shoes,  and  light-colored  trousers 
in  very  large  plaids.  This  singular  young  person  appeared  officially 
before  the  Committee  of  Thirty-three  of  the  House.  When  Repre- 
sentative Dawes,  of  Massachusetts,  asked  him  what  brought  him  to 
Washington  he  repeated  the  question  with  surprise,  and  added,  "  You 
cannot  be  ignorant  that  the  new  sovereign  State  of  South  Carolina 
has  sent  an  embassy  to  negotiate  a  treaty  of  friendship  and  alliance 
with  its  neighbors  of  the  United  States,  with  wrhich  it  is  desirous  of 
living  on  terms  of  fellowship;  and  I  have  the  honor  of  being  secretary 
of  that  legation."  The  "  embassy  "  took  a  fine  house  in  K  street,  the 
rent  of  which  is  still  owing,  where  the}7  unfurled  the  flag  of  their  lega- 
tion, and  prepared  to  present  their  credentials  to  President  Buchanan. 
The  usefulness  of  the  "  embassy  "  was  impaired,  however,  by  an  event 
for  which  neither  the  commissioners  nor  the  administration  were 
prepared.  Major  Robert  Anderson,  who  was  in  command  of  the  forti- 
fications in  Charleston  harbor,  suddenly,  on  the  night  of  the  26th  of 
December,  transferred  his  little  force  from  Fort  Moultrie,  where  it 
was  at  the  mercy  of  the  "  Sovereign  State  of  South  Carolina,"  to  Fort 
Sumter,  where  he  had  some  hope  of  making  a  successful  defense  in 
case  of  attack.  Anderson's  stroke  emboldened  the  Commissioners  to 
demand  the  immediate  withdrawal  of  the  troops  from  the  harbor  of 
Charleston,  under  a  threat  of  suspending  negotiations  which  were 
not  yet  begun.  Thereupon  the  President,  who  had  consented  to  re- 
ceive the  agents  of  a  conspiracy,  was  impelled,  after  prolonged  hesita- 
tion, to  dismiss  the  emissaries  of  an  insurrection,  and  to  make  an  un- 


SECESSION.  93 

successful  effort  to  succor  the  beleaguered  garrison.  It  was  the  im- 
pudence of  the  demand,  backed  by  the  preparations  of  South  Carolina 
for  war  with  the  United  States,  that  induced  Judge  Black  to  stop  the 
temporizing  folly  of  Buchanan,  and  to  reverse  the  feeble  policy  of  the 
administration. 

One  of  the  episodes  of  that  remarkable  winter  in  Washington  was 
the  famous  Peace  Convention,  from  which  so  much  was  expected,  but 
which  achieved  so  little.  It  was  appointed  upon  the  invitation  of  the 
General  Assembly  of  Virginia,  and  comprised  133  Commissioners,  in- 
cluding many  from  the  border  States.  It  met  on  the  4th  of  Febru- 
ary, when  only  one  month  of  the  36th  Congress  remained.  A  commit- 
tee consisting  of  one  Commissioner  from  each  State  was  appointed 
to  consider  the  conflicting  propositions  offered  in  Convention,  and  "  to 
report  what  they  may  deem  right,  necessary,  and  proper  to  restore 
harmony  and  preserve  the  Union."  This  committee  was  instructed  to 
report  on  or  before  the  8th,  but  the  report  was  not  made  until  the 
15th.  The  propositions  reported  by  the  majority  of  the  Committee 
were  substantially  the  same  as  the  Crittenden  Compromise.  Minority 
reports  were  made  by  Mr.  Baldwin,  of  Connecticut,  and  Mr.  Seddon, 
of  Virginia.  Mr.  Baldwin's  proposition  was  for  a  Convention  for  a 
proposed  amendment  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  to  be 
submitted  to  the  Legislatures  of  the  several  States,  or  to  conventions 
therein,  for  ratification.  One  of  Mr.  Seddon's  propositions  was  the 
distinct  recognition  of  the  right  of  secession,  and  a  final  vote  was  not 
reached  on  the  first  section  of  the  proposed  amendment  until  the  26th 
of  February.  This  section,  on  which  all  the  others  depended,  was 
negatived  by  a  vote  of  8  States  to  11.  Immediately  after  the  section 
had  been  negatived,  a  motion  to  reconsider  the  vote  prevailed,  and 
the  Convention  adjourned  until  the  next  morning.  On  the  27th  the 
section  was  adopted  by  a  vote  of  9  to  8  States.  The  States  voting  in 
the  negative  were  Maine,  Massachusetts,  New  Hampshire,  Vermont, 
Connecticut,  Illinois,  Virginia,  and  North  Carolina.  Missouri  withheld 
her  vote,  and  New  York  was  unable  to  vote  because  of  the  absence  of 
one  of  the  Commissioners  from  that  State.  The  remaining  sections 
were  carried  by  small  majorities.  The  amendment  adopted  by  the  Con- 
vention was  communicated  to  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representa- 
tives by  Mr.  Tyler,  the  President,  but  it  failed  in  the  Senate  by  a  vote  of 
28  to  7,  while  in  the  House  the  Speaker  was  refused  leave  to  present 
it.  As  six  States  had  already  seceded,  and  took  no  part  in  the  Con- 
vention, this  last  effort  for  peace  was  foredoomed  to  failure  from  the 
beginning. 

It  has  been  held  by  Democratic  writers  since  the  war  that  the  Re- 
publican party  was  responsible  for  the  failure  of  the  compromise 


94  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

measures  of  1860-61.  One  Democratic  historian  asserts  that  "  no  man 
can  point  to  one  law  passed  by  Congress  to  prevent  secession,  or  to 
avoid  war.  Those  Republicans  who  did  not  go  with  Greeley  and 
Chief  Justice  Chase  in  letting  the  South  l  go  in  peace/  expected  and 
wished  for  war,  as  a  means  of  fulfilling  their  promises  to  the  Aboli- 
tionists." S.  S.  Cox,  in  his  "  Three  Decades  of  Federal  Legislation," 
written  long  after  the  war,  declared  that  those  who  sought  to  coun- 
teract the  schemes  of  secession  were  themselves  checkmated  by  ex- 
treme men  of  the  Republican  party,  who,  he  assumes,  were  for  the 
destruction  of  slavery  at  the  peril  of  war  and  disunion.  The  people, 
Mr.  Cox  declared,  favored  the  compromise.  We  should  be  compelled 
to  regard  these  assertions  as  true,  if  the  panic  that  existed  all  over 
the  North  and  the  petitions  signed  by  thousands  of  Northern  citizens 
and  showered  upon  Congress,  were  accepted  as  proofs  of  the  attitude 
of  the  Free  States.  If  the  principles  contained  in  the  Crittenden 
Compromise  had  triumphed,  and  been  accepted  by  the  seceding  States, 
the  surrender  would  have  involved  the  disorganization  of  the  Repub- 
lican party.  Its  continued  existence  would  have  been  considered  a 
continual  menace  to  slavery,  and  every  Presidential  election  in  which 
it  participated  would  have  been  conducted  with  menaces  of  secession 
in  case  of  Republican  success.  When  South  Carolina  seceded  all  com- 
promise was  futile,  unless  the  Republican  party  consented  to  go  out 
of  business  at  once  and  forever.  This  was  what  was  expected  and 
demanded  by  the  Democratic  champions  of  slavery  in  the  North. 
"  When  the  struggle  was  at  its  height  in  Georgia  between  Robert 
Toombs,  for  secession,  and  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  against  it,"  said 
William  Bigler,  of  Pennsylvania,  as  late  as  1863,  "  had  those  men  in 
the  Committee  of  Thirteen,  who  are  now  so  blameless  in  their  own 
estimation,  given  us  their  votes,  or  even  three  of  them,  Stephens 
would  have  defeated  Toombs,  and  secession  would  have  been  pros- 
trated. I  heard  Mr.  Toombs  say  to  Mr.  Douglas  that  the  result  in 
Georgia  was  staked  on  the  action  of  the  Committee  of  Thirteen.  If 
it  accepted  the  Crittenden  propositions,  Stephens  would  defeat  him; 
if  not,  he  would  carry  the  State  out  by  40,000  majority.  The  three 
votes  from  the  Republican  side  would  have  carried  it  at  any  time; 
but  union  and  peace  in  the  balance  against  the  Chicago  platform 
were  sure  to  be  found  wanting."  This  man,  who  had  voted  with  Jef- 
ferson Davis  in  the  Committee  of  Thirteen  to  introduce  slavery  into 
the  Free  States,  thought  it  criminal  in  Republican  Senators  that  they 
should  wish  to  preserve  the  principles  of  their  party  and  the  fruits  of 
its  victory. 

While  Democratic  writers  accuse  the  Republican  leaders  of  1860-61 
of  making  no  efforts  to  avert  secession,  later  Republicans  are  more  apt 


SECESSION.  95 

to  charge  them  with  cherishing  a  conciliatory  spirit  that  was  both 
shameful  and  cowardly.  The  Democratic  accusations  are  forgotten 
sophistries  that  if  recalled  now  are  contemptuously  dismissed.  These 
sophistries  seemed  irrefragable  in  the  winter  of  1860-61  to  many  per- 
sons who  became  sound  Republicans  afterward.  In  this  era  it  is  not 
easy  to  realize  the  love  for  the  Union  that  was  felt  during  the  epoch 
when  it  was  assailed.  No  sacrifice  was  considered  too  great  for  its 
preservation.  At  the  same  time  the  hatred  of  slavery  was  not  very 
deep  or  very  bitter  even  in  the  Republican  States.  Thousands  of  men 
in  every  Free  State  had  voted  for  Lincoln  and  Hamlin,  who  were  only 
Kepublicans  when  the  sun  shone  and  the  skies  were  blue  and  fair. 
These  fair-weather  Kepublicans  were  appalled  when  they  saw  the 
storm  that  was  the  result  of  their  victory.  They  were  willing  to 
sacrifice  their  principles  and  their  party  for  their  country  and  its  in- 
stitutions, and  they  believed  they  were  patriots  in  doing  it.  Men 
who  had  accepted  the  Whig  platform  of  1852,  and  voted  for  Pillmore 
and  Donelson  or  Buchanan  and  Breckinridge  in  1856,  were  willing 
to  repent  in  sackcloth  and  ashes  for  having  supported  Lincoln  and 
Hamlin  in  1860.  Few  of  the  old  Whigs  became  Abolitionists  until 
after  slavery  was  abolished.  Many  of  the  men  who  helped  to  nomi- 
nate Lincoln  in  1860  opposed  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  in  1862. 
The  disintegration  of  the  Republican  party  began  with  the  news  of 
Republican  success.  The  reaction  in  the  North  was  so  great  that  it 
amounted  to  self-abasement.  The  sentiments  that  were  applauded 
in  the  campaign  were  now  received  with  jeers  instead  of  cheers.  A 
mob  was  threatened  in  Philadelphia  to  prevent  George  William  Cur- 
tis from  delivering  a  lecture  before  the  People's  Literary  Union,  and 
a  Republican  Mayor  lacked  the  courage  to  protect  the  lecturer. 
Among  the  intending  rioters,  no  doubt,  were  some  of  the  men  who,  a 
few  months  before,  had  serenaded  Benjamin  Harris  Brewster,  after- 
ward Attorney-General  in  President  Arthur's  Cabinet,  in  recognition 
of  his  services  as  a  lawyer  in  sending  a  fugitive  slave  back  to  slavery. 
"  The  institution  of  domestic  servitude  is  a  great  public  necessity," 
Mr.  Brewster  said  in  his  speech — "  politically  right,  socially  right, 
and  morally  right."  When  such  were  the  opinions  of  a  man  who 
afterward  became  one  of  the  high  priests  of  the  party,  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  the  mob  that  rejoiced  in  the  return  of  a  runaway  was 
loud  in  demanding  surrender  to  slavery.  Everywhere  Union  meetings 
were  held,  in  which  the  South  was  implored  to  come  back,  with 
declarations  that  every  peaceable  remedy  should  be  exhausted,  party 
platforms  set  aside,  and  individual  records  cast  to  the  winds.  With 
such  a  state  of  feeling  and  such  abasement  in  the  North,  interspersed 
with  Northern  proclamations  of  the  wrongs  of  the  South  and  the  right 
of  secession,  it  is  no  wonder  that  Republicans  in  Congress  gave  way, 


96 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 


only  to  be  treated  with  contempt  by  the  seceding  States  and  derision 
by  the  departing  statesmen.  While  good  men  abased  themselves, 
men  of  the  kind  who  had  serenaded  Brewster  and  were  threatening 
Curtis  rejoiced  in  their  shame;  and  while  timid  men  took  counsel  of 
their  fears,  bad  men  were  bold  in  proclaiming  their  hate.  This  was 
the  condition  to  which  thirty  years  of  compromises  and  concessions 
had  brought  the  country. 

As  the  time  approached  for  counting  the  electoral  vote  and  declar- 
ing the  result,  intense  excitement  prevailed  in  Washington,  and  many 
persons  believed  that  a  conspiracy  existed  to  prevent  the  count.  In 
view  of  these  fears  great  precautions  were  taken  to  guard  against  any 
possible  danger.  General  Scott  obtained  permission  from  the  Secre- 
tary of  War  to  bring  a  number  of  companies  of  regulars  from  Fortress 

Monroe  to  the  capital,  which,  with  the 
seven  hundred  regular  troops  then  in 
Washington,  the  police,  and  militia,  he 
deemed  sufficient  for  all  contingencies. 
The  regulars  were  placed  under  the  com- 
mand of  Colonel  Harvey  Brown.  The 
bridges  of  the  Potomac  were  carefully 
guarded  by  the  militia,  the  regular 
troops  were  stationed  at  convenient 
points  in  the  city,  and  a  confidential  ar- 
rangement of  signals  was  communicated, 
to  the  officers.  The  certificates  of  the 
electoral  vote  from  each  State  were  kept 
in  two  boxes  in  the  sole  custody  of  the 
Vice-President,  in  whose  loyalty  little 
confidence  was  felt.  On  the  day  of  the 
count,  Vice-President  Breckinridge,  with 

a  messenger  carrying  the  two  boxes,  and  followed  by  the  Senate,  two 
by  two,  was  to  proceed  from  the  Senate  Chamber,  through  the  Ro- 
tunda, to  the  House  of  Representatives.  It  wrould  have  been  easy  for 
desperadoes,  mingling  with  the  crowd  that  filled  the  space  between  the 
chambers,  to  fall  upon  the  messenger  and  violently  seize  the  boxes,  or 
to  precipitate  themselves  from  the  galleries  of  the  House,  and  break 
up  the  proceedings.  As  a  safeguard  against  these  dangers,  policemen 
from  Philadelphia,  New  York,  and  other  cities,  in  citizens'  dress,  were 
stationed  along  the  passageways  and  in  the  galleries.  Happily  no  con- 
spiracy existed,  and  the  count  and  declaration  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  elec- 
tion proceeded  without  interruption.  A  large  and  brilliant  throng 
filled  the  galleries  of  the  House  to  witness  the  ceremony.  The  Vice- 
President,  although  his  heart  was  with  the  secessionists,  performed 


JOHN    C.    BRECKINRIDGE. 


SECESSION.  97 

his  duty  with  great  dignity  and  propriety.  The  sealed  returns  of  the 
electoral  votes,  cast  in  the  colleges  of  the  several  States  on  the  5th  of 
December,  were  formally  opened  and  registered.  Then  the  teller 
officially  declared  the  result,  and  the  Vice-President  announced  that 
Abraham  Lincoln,  of  Illinois,  having  received  a  majority  of  the  whole 
number  of  electoral  votes,  is  elected  President  of  the  United  States 
for  four  years,  commencing  the  4th  of  March,  1861.  During  these 
proceedings  the  excitement  and  anxiety  were  intense;  but  the  crisis 
was  safely  passed,  and  it  only  remained  to  complete  the  formalities 
that  would  clothe  the  President-elect  with  the  insignia  of  the  great 
office  to  which  he  had  been  called.  Tn  the  mean  time,  Mr.  Lincoln 
made  his  memorable  journey  from  his  home  in  Springfield  to  the  capi- 
tal. While  he  was  on  his  way  it  was  learned  that  a  conspiracy  existed 
to  assassinate  the  President-elect  in  Baltimore  on  his  way  to  Wash- 
ington. There  is  nowr  no  reason  to  doubt  that  it  was  defeated  by  pre- 
cautions that  brought  Mr.  Lincoln  to  the  capital  on  the  morning  be- 
fore the  day  appointed  for  his  arrival.  The  consequence  of  the  secret 
journey  from  Harrisburg  to  Washington  was  a  sudden  and  painful 
revulsion  of  feeling  toward  the  President-elect.  He  was  "  frightened 
at  his  own  shadow  ";  he  had  "  sneaked  into  Washington  ";  "  the  man 
afraid  to  come  through  Baltimore  was  not  fit  to  be  President,"  were 
the  phrases  with  which  his  indignant  critics  indulged  themselves. 
A  hostile  newspaper  even  fabricated  a  story  that  he  had  come  dis- 
guised in  a  Scotch  cap  and  cloak.  To  counteract  the  effect  of  these 
violent  outcries,  Mr.  Seward  took  the  President-elect  in  charge  and 
introduced  him  to  the  Senate.  To  Mr.  Haskin,  an  anti-Lecompton 
Democrat,  was  committed  the  duty  of  introducing  him  to  the  House 
of  Representatives.  Thus  the  36th  Congress  went  out  of  existence, 
and  Mr.  Lincoln  awaited  the  morning  of  his  inauguration. 


II. 

REPUBLICAN  LEADERS  OF  1861. 

Lincoln's  Personality — Unfavorable  Impressions — Formation  of  the 
Cabinet — Inauguration — The  Cabinet  Received  with  Disfavor— 
Seward  and  Lincoln — Chase  and  Lincoln — Distrust  of  the  Presi- 
dent— The  Thirty-seventh  Congress — The  War  Governors — Im- 
pending Changes  in  Republican  Leadership. 


HE  personal  appearance  of  no  President  of  the  United  States 
ever  projected  itself  into  the  problems  of  his  administra- 
tion with  the  grim  distinctness  that  Abraham  Lincoln's  tall 
form,  gaunt  figure,  and  seamed  face  became  a  part  of  his 
public  life.  Even  to  expectant  politicians  and  charitably  disposed 
party  friends  the  man  was  not  only  a  disappointment,  but  a  forebod- 
ing of  national  calamity.  Most  of  these  observers  afterward  put  their 
early  impressions  on  record  with  a  freedom  that  was  all  the  greater 
because  they  had  misjudged  the  man  because  of  his  looks.  When 
the  President-elect  opened  the  door  of  his  Springfield  house  to  one 
political  pilgrim,  the  politician,  who  was  himself  a  man  of  imposing- 
appearance,  felt  his  heart  sink  within  him  when  he  saw  in  the  figure 
before  him  "  the  man  chosen  by  a  great  nation  to  become  its  ruler  in 
the  gravest  period  of  its  history."  Tall,  gaunt,  ungainly,  ill-clad, 
with  a  homeliness  of  manner  that  was  unique  in  itself,  as  the  politi- 
cal wayfarer  described  him,  he  seemed  far  from  the  heroic  figure 
that  he  is  in  history.  One  member  of  Congress,  who  had  uncon- 
sciously idealized  the  qualities  of  mind  and  heart  that  all  the  world 
now  recognizes  in  the  hero  and  martyr,  has  left  a  record  of  his  emo- 
tions when  he  saw  Abraham  Lincoln  enter  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives, on  the  morning  after  the  secret  journey.  "  Never  did  god  come 
tumbling  down  more  suddenly  and  completely  than  did  mine,'7  he 
afterward  wrote,  "  as  the  unkempt,  ill-formed,  loose-jointed,  and  dis- 
proportioned  figure  of  Mr.  Lincoln  appeared  at  the  door."  In  the 
"  reptile  "  press  he  was  caricatured  with  extraordinary  bitterness, 
both  with  pen  and  pencil.  The  caricatures  of  the  Northern  press,  in- 
cluding the  "  Journal  of  Civilization,"  during  the  war  period  exceeded 
in  virulence  even  the  attacks  of  Freneau  and  of  the  Aurora  upon 
Washington.  The  libel  of  the  Scotch  cap  and  cloak  was  reproduced 
with  infinite  variety  and  shameless  malevolence.  But  neither  the 
aspersions  of  Northern  champions  of  the  South,  nor  the  panic  of  the 
timid  Republicans  who  took  counsel  of  their  fears,  were  so  dangerous 


REPUBLICAN   LEADERS   OF   1861. 


99 


in  that  trying  hour  as  the  haughty  depreciation  of  the  hereditary 
Whigs.  This  class  included  nearly  all  the  men  eminent  for  their 
learning,  their  social  position  and  their  wealth.  Edward  Everett, 
distinguished  for  his  scholarship  and  his  eloquence,  had  accepted  the 
subordinate  place  on  the  ticket  with  John  Bell  in  1860  in  order  to  de- 
feat Lincoln,  and  he  now  stood  for  conciliation  and  surrender.  He 
could  not  realize  that  in  the  near  future  he  would  stand  on  the  same 
platform  with  Abraham  Lincoln  at  Gettysburg,  where  his  sonorous 
periods  would  die  on  his  own  lips,  while  the  President's  few  phrases 
wTould  become  immortal.  Robert  C.  Winthrop  held  proudly  aloof,  or 
indulged  himself  in  contemptuous  depreciation  of  the  man  of  the 
people.  Charles  Francis  Adams  turned  tinker  of  the  Constitution, 
and  by  the  amendment  that  he  proposed,  and  both  advocated  and 
opposed  in  his  indecision  and  weakness,  forever  associated  the  Adams 
name  with  a  futile  surrender  to  slavery. 
He  never  rose  to  a  full  appreciation  of 
the  sagacity  and  wisdom  of  Abraham 
Lincoln.  William  H.  Seward  sat  serene- 
ly in  his  seat  in  the  Senate,  uttering  trite 
prophecies  of  the  calm  that  would  come 
after  the  storm,  and  waiting  for  the  time 
when,  to  use  the  words  of  Mr.  Adams 
after  his  death,  he  would  dismiss  "  the 
noblest  dreams  of  an  ambition  he  had  the 
clearest  right  to  indulge,  in  exchange 
for  a  more  solid  power  to  direct  affairs 
for  the  benefit  of  the  nation  in  the  name 
of  another."  From  that  other  all  the 
world  seemed  willing  to  turn  away  in 

depreciation,  if  not  in  downright  disgust,  and  the  country  regarded 
the  incoming  President  and  his  administration  with  hopeless  despair. 
It  was  fortunate  for  the  Union  that  the  quiet  figure  in  the  modest 
home  in  Illinois  was  neither  the  mountebank  that  enemies  describe 
him  as  being,  nor  the  plastic  clay  the  man  who  expected  to  rule  in  his 
name  hoped  to  find  him.  For  Abraham  Lincoln  the  winter  of  1860-61 
was  peculiarly  trying.  The  time  was  out  of  joint.  Events  that  wTould 
make  or  mar  the  new  administration  at  the  outset  were  beyond  the 
control  of  the  President-elect,  and  shaped  themselves  without  regard 
to  his  opinions  or  interests.  He  could  only  watch  and  wait,  and  form 
his  Cabinet  and  prepare  his  Inaugural  Address  almost  unaided  in 
those  dark  days  of  doubt  and  conflict.  The  formation  of  the  Cabinet 
was  no  easy  task,  although  Mr.  Lincoln  formulated  it  in  his  own  mind 
as  soon  as  his  head  touched  his  pillow  on  the  night  after  his  election. 


CHARLKS    FKANCIS    ADAMS. 


100  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

As  Mr.  Lincoln  originally  marshaled  the  names  of  his  contemplated 
Cabinet,  they  comprised  Seward,  Chase,  Bates,  Dayton,  Welles,  Judd, 
and  Blair.  Reward,  Bates,  and  Dayton  were  of  Whig  antecedents, 
and  Chase,  Judd,  Welles,  and  Blair  of  Democratic  affiliations,  before 
they  became  Republicans.  There  was  no  objection  to  the  selection  of 
Mr.  Seward  for  Secretary  of  State,  but  Seward's  friends  strenuously 
objected  to  the  appointment  of  either  Chase  as  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  or  Bates  as  Attorney-General,  because  they  had  been  Demo- 
crats. They  considered  a  Seward  Cabinet  essential  to  the  success  of 
the  administration,  and  through  the  manipulations  of  Thurlow  Weed 
it  was  believed  they  would  have  their  way.  It  was  even  intimated 
that  Mr.  Seward  might  decline  if  Chase  and  Bates  were  appointed. 
Mr.  Lincoln  refused  to  yield,  and  Mr.  Seward  was  compelled  to  ac- 
quiesce. The  claims  of  Pennsylvania  to  a  Cabinet  position  were  so 
great  that  they  were  acceded  to,  and  the  name  of  Mr.  Cameron  for 
Secretary  of  War  was  substituted  for  that  of  Mr.  Dayton.  This 
brought  a  protest  from  the  anti-Cameron  faction,  and  Colonel  McClure 
was  sent  to  Springfield  to  prevent  the  appointment.  Among  the 
Peunsylvanians  who  were  opposed  to  Cameron  were  Thaddeus  Ste- 
vens, David  Wilmot,  and  Governor  Curtin.  McClure  succeeded  so 
well  in  his  mission  that  the  tender  to  Cameron  was  withdrawn.  In 
the  mean  time  the  appointment  of  Mr.  Welles  as  Secretary  of  the 
Navy  was  jeopardized  also,  Mr.  Lincoln  being  anxious  to  have  a  loyal 
member  of  the  Cabinet  from  the  South.  Mr.  Seward  recommended 
Colonel  Fremont  for  Secretary  of  War,  and  Randall  Hunt,  of  Louisi- 
ana, and  John  A.  Gilmer  or  Kennett  Raynor,  of  North  Carolina,  for 
other  places.  Other  names  suggested  by  him  were  those  of  Robert  E. 
Scott,  of  Virginia,  and  Meredith  Gentry,  of  Tennessee.  Mr.  Gilmer 
would  have  been  appointed  to  either  the  War  or  Navy  Department 
had  he  consented.  His  declination  resulted  in  the  final  selection  of 
both  Cameron  and  Welles.  An  effort  was  made  to  secure  the  appoint- 
ment of  Henry  Winter  Davis,  of  Maryland,  which  would  have  resulted 
in  setting  Montgomery  Blair  aside  for  Postmaster:General.  In  the 
case  of  Blair,  Mr.  Lincoln  also  adhered  to  his  original  intention.  As 
the  Cabinet  was  finally  constituted,  the  only  substitution,  besides 
that  of  Cameron  for  Dayton,  was  the  appointment  of  Caleb  B.  Smith, 
of  Indiana,  as  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  instead  of  Norman  B.  Judd,  of 
Illinois.  Why  Mr.  Smith  was  appointed  instead  of  Mr.  Judd  is  not 
very  clear,  unless  it  w7as  because  Mr.  Lincoln  wished  to  retain 
the  political  balance  between  the  Republican  Whigs  and  the  Repub- 
lican Democrats  in  his  official  family.  Judd  was  a  man  of  more  ability 
than  Smith,  his  services  to  the  party  were  greater,  and  to  Mr.  Lincoln 
his  personal  friendship  and  political  loyalty  had  been  inestimable. 


REPUBLICAN   LEADERS   OF   1861. 


101 


No  one  man  had  been  more  active  or  serviceable  in  securing  Mr.  Lin- 
coln's nomination.  The  President  told  Secretary  Welles  that  he  had  a 
stronger  desire  that  Judd  should  be  associated  with  him  in  the  ad- 
ministration than  any  one  else,  and  yet  Judd  was  compelled  to  con- 
tent himself  with  the  Prussian  Mission  instead  of  a  Cabinet  position. 
Judd's  failure  is  only  another  illustration  of  the  uncertainty  of  politi- 
cal rewards,  and  the  impotency  of  powerful  friends. 

The  inauguration  of  Lincoln  differed  in  one  respect  from  other  in- 
augurations before  and  since — there  was  a  greater  display  of  military 
force  than  had  ever  been  necessary,  or  than  may  ever  be  necessary 
hereafter.  The  carriage  of  the  retiring  President  and  the  President- 
elect was  drawn  between  two  files  of  a  squadron  of  District  cavalry.  A 
company  of  sappers  and  miners  marched  in  front  of  the  Presidential 
carriage,  and  the  infantry  and 
riflemen  of  the  District  followed 
it.  Squads  of  riflemen  were 
placed  on  the  roofs  of  command- 
ing houses  in  Pennsylvania  ave- 
nue so  as  to  command  all  the  win- 
dows on  both  sides  of  the  way. 
Kiflemen  occupied  the  windows  of 
the  wings  of  the  Capitol,  and  a 
battalion  of  District  troops  was 
placed  near  the  steps  of  the  east 
front.  After  the  ceremony  Presi- 
dent Lincoln's  journey  to  the 
WThite  House  was  made  with  the 
same  military  disposition  as  be- 
fore. The  usual  ceremonial  visit 
was  made  to  the  Senate  Chamber, 

and  the  usual  procession  of  dignitaries  escorted  the  President-elect 
to  the  east  portico  of  the  Capitol  to  be  sworn.  On  the  platform  was  a 
distinguished  throng — James  Buchanan,  rejoicing,  no  doubt,  that  he 
was  about  to  escape  from  the  great  responsibility  to  which  he  had 
proved  unequal;  General  Scott,  soon  to  be  supplanted  as  the  military 
leader  of  the  time;  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  Lincoln's  foeman  in  more 
than  one  political  battle,  and  the  Justices  of  the  Supreme  Court,  and 
many  of  the  Senators  and  Representatives  in  Congress  whose  work, 
such  as  it  was,  completed  the  history  of  the  epoch.  The  Inaugural 
Address  was  delivered  in  a  clear,  resonant  voice,  and  the  oath  of  office 
wras  administered  by  Chief  Justice  Taney.  WThile  Lincoln  was  speak- 
ing Douglas  held  his  hat.  and  was  one  of  the  first  to  grasp  the  hand 
of  his  old  rival,  now  President  of  the  United  States.  It  was  the  last 


N.    B.    JUDD. 


102 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 


time  the  venerable  Chief  Justice  was  to  pronounce  the  solemn  words 
that  make  an  American  citizen  the  ruler  of  a  great  people,  and  which 
then  marked  the  beginning  of  a  new  era.  It  is  unnecessary  to  at- 
tempt any  analysis  of  the  Inaugural  Address,  for  President  Lincoln's 
plea  for  the  Union  went  unheeded,  except  by  those  wrhose  duty  it 
became  to  enforce  it  by  arms. 

When  President  Lincoln  announced  his  Cabinet  after  his  inau- 
guration it  was  assailed  by  men  like  Wade  and  Lovejoy  as  a  dis- 
graceful surrender  to  the  South.  Thaddeus  Stevens  described  it  as 

™ 

an  assortment  of  rivals  for  the  Presidency,  one  stump  speaker  from 
Indiana,  and  two  representatives  of  the  Blair  family.  The  assortment 

of  rivals  was  made  up  of  Seward 
in  the  State  Department,  Chase  in 
the  Treasury,  Cameron  as  Secre- 
tary of  War,  and  Bates  as  Attor- 
ney-General. The  "  stump  speak- 
er "  from  Indiana  was  Caleb  B. 
Smith,  Secretary  of  the  Interior, 
and  the  two  representatives  of  the 
Blair  family  were  Montgomery 
Blair  and  Edward  Bates,  of  Mis- 
souri, whose  appointment  was 
generally  attributed  to  the  influ- 
ence of  Francis  P.  Blair,  Jr.  Gid- 
eon Welles,  of  Connecticut,  seems 
to  have  owed  his  appointment  as 
Secretary  of  the  Navy  to  Vice- 
President  Hamlin.  It  was  a  com- 
mon saying  among  radical  Repub- 
licans at  the  time,  that  Mr.  Lin- 
coln's Cabinet  did  not  contain 

three  such  unswerving  friends  of  the  Union  as  Dix,  Holt,  and  Stanton, 
who  had  just  retired  with  Mr.  Buchanan. 

The  appointment  of  Mr.  Seward  to  the  first  place  under  the  new 
government  was  in  accordance  with  precedent.  For  twenty  years 
the  post  had  been  given  to  the  President's  most  powerful  competitor 
in  his  own  party  for  the  Presidency.  President  Harrison  had  offered 
the  ^tate  Department  to  Mr.  Clay,  and  when  he  declined  it,  it  was 
given  to  Mr.  Webster;  President  Polk  appointed  Mr.  Buchanan; 
President  Pierce  gave  the  place  to  Mr.  Marcy,  and  President  Bu- 
chanan accorded  it  to  General  Cass,  his  successful  rival  in  1848,  be- 
cause it  was  impossible  to  offer  it  to  his  predecessor,  General  Pierce. 
The  only  exception  was  President  Taylor,  whose  two  powerful  op- 


BENJ.    F.    WADE. 


REPUBLICAN   LEADERS   OF   1861.  103 

ponents,  Clay  and  Webster,  would  have  disdained  to  accept  office 
under  him.  As  Secretary  of  State  under  President  Lincoln,  Mr. 
Seward  readily  assumed  that  he  was  to  be  the  mouthpiece  of  the  ad- 
ministration. The  tone  of  his  letter  to  the  President-elect,  criticising 
the  draft  of  Lincoln's  Inaugural  Address,  reveals  his  easy  assump- 
tion of  mastery  in  guiding  the  new  government.  The  attitude  he  ad- 
vised was  far  from  becoming  the  policy  that  Mr.  Lincoln  adopted. 
He  did  not  fear  the  displeasure  of  the  triumphant  party  that  had  pre- 
ferred Mr.  Lincoln  to  himself  for  the  Presidency,  but  he  was  for  "  con- 
cessions "  to  "  the  defeated,  irritated,  angered,  frenzied  party." 
"  Your  case,"  he  told  Lincoln,  "  is  like  that  of  Jefferson,"  whose  ex- 
ample he  thought  it  wise  to  follow.  Although  Mr.  Lincoln  adopted 
nearly  all  of  Mr.  Seward's  suggestions  in  the  address,  he  never  for  a 
moment  yielded  his  independence  of  judgment  to  his  great  Secretary, 
nor  ceased  to  be  the  master  mind  of  his  administration.  It  was  some 
weeks  after  the  inauguration  that  Mr.  Seward  discovered  that  in 
reality  he  was  not  "  to  direct  affairs  for  the  benefit  of  the  nation 
through  the  name  of  another."  Of  the  two  men  Lincoln  was  the 
stronger  in  will,  the  sounder  in  judgment,  the  safer  in  administration, 
and  the  better  grounded  in  the  true  principles  of  a  wise  statesman- 
ship. He  was  shrewd,  but  not  crafty,  and,  unlike  Seward,  he  was  Hot 
a  managing  politician.  Not  only  were  the  President's  character  mis- 
understood, his  abilities  underrated,  and  his  fitness  for  his  high  office 
impugned,  but  Mr.  Seward  shared  in  the  erroneous  judgment  of  what 
Mr.  Adams  calls  "  the  deficiencies  of  his  chief."  At  the  beginning  of 
the  administration  the  Secretary  of  State  acted  as  if  he  was  President 
de  facto;  he  formulated  a  policy  of  his  own,  which  he  made  a  secret 
of  the  State  Department,  and  of  which  the  Cabinet  had  no  knowledge, 
and  the  President  was  only  partly  informed;  he  assumed  the  right  to 
call  Cabinet  meetings  at  his  own  pleasure,  without  the  President's 
direction;  he  prepared  and  sent  an  irregular  military  expedition  for 
the  relief  of  Fort  Pickens,  without  consulting  the  Secretary  of  War 
and  the  General-in-Chief,  or  informing  any  of  his  associates  in  the 
government  of  his  extraordinary  assumption  of  authority;  in  many 
ways  he  acted  as  a  virtual  dictator,  ignoring  the  heads  of  the  other 
departments,  directing  the  expenditure  of  military  and  naval  appro- 
priations of  which  he  had  no  control,  assigning  officers  of  the  army 
and  navy  to  services  of  his  own  devising  without  regard  to  their 
assigned  duties;  and  making  promises  and  giving  assurances  in  re- 
gard to  Fort  Sumter  that  were  unauthorized  by  the  President.  He 
even  submitted  a  proposition  to  the  President  to  change  the  national 
issue  from  slavery  to  a  foreign  war.  With  the  suggestion  of  a  war 
with  France  and  Spain,  was  another  more  remarkable  still.  It  was 


104 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 


that  the  enforcement  of  the  new  policy  should  devolve  upon  some 
member  of  the  Cabinet.  "  I  neither  seek  to  evade  or  assume  the  re- 
sponsibility," Mr.  Seward  said,  with  the  smirking  complacency  of 
self-sufficiency.  The  erratic  course  of  the  Secretary  of  State  was  the 
cause  of  much  mischief,  but  the  President  ignored  Mr.  Seward's 
recommendations,  and  had  the  will  and  the  courage  to  bring  his  inter- 
meddling to  an  end.  When  Seward  learned  that  he  could  not  be  the 
master  he  became  as  amenable  to  his  chief  as  the  other  members  of 
Lincoln's  Cabinet. 

After  Seward,  Mr.  Chase  was  the  most  discordant  element  of  the 
new  Cabinet.  As  a  member  of  the  Peace  Conference  he  was  prop- 
erly averse  to  the  concessions  that  were  demanded  on  behalf  of  the 
South,  and  voted  against  the  proposed  Thirteenth  Amendment,  but  in 

Mr.  Lincoln's  councils  he  believed 
in  disunion  as  preferable  to  civil 
war,  and  urged  surrender  to  the 
Confederacy  upon  the  President. 
He  was  a  pure  man,  of  unques- 
tioned ability  and  overmastering 
ambition,  but,  a  supposed  extrem- 
ist, he  was  in  fact  a  conservative, 
prejudiced,  petulant,  and  intract- 
able. He  was  not  amenable  like 
Seward.  Unlike  Seward,  he  was 
not  eager  to  rule  in  the  name  of 
another,  but  from  the  day  that  he 
entered  the  Cabinet  until  he  left  it 
his  heart  was  set  on  becoming- 
Lincoln's  successor.  Although  he 
earned  enduring  fame  as  the  finan- 
cier of  the  civil  war,  he  was  never  satisfied  with  his  position,  and 
tendered  his  resignation  so  often  that  he  was  at  last  surprised  at  its 
acceptance. 

Cameron's  Cabinet  relations  with  Lincoln  were  more  agreeable 
than  were  to  be  expected  when  the  circumstances  of  his  appointment 
and  the  concentrated  opposition  to  his  management  of  the  War  De- 
partment are  considered.  According  to  the  theory  on  which  the 
Cabinet  was  formed,  Cameron  was  as  clearly  entitled  to  a  place  in  it 
as  Seward.  When  justice  is  done  him  it  will  be  conceded  that  in  the 
early  months  of  Lincoln's  administration  he  evinced  a  clearer  idea 
of  the  scope  and  meaning  of  the  impending  struggle  than  any  of  Lin- 
coln's advisers,  and  if  he  had  not  been  a  politician  he  might  have 
become  the  great  War  Minister  instead  of  Stanton.  As  it  was,  he  was 


S.    P.    CHASE. 


REPUBLICAN   LEADERS   OF   1861. 


105 


SIMON    CAMERON. 


destined  to  become  the  victim  of  the  feuds  in  the  party  in  his  own 
State,  and  of  the  bitter  hostility  of  the  commonplace  men  who  were 
making  war  upon  the  administration, 
while  the  administration  was  making 
war  upon  the  South.  Welles,  Bates, 
Smith,  and  Blair  were  all  mediocri- 
ties, but  their  loyalty  to  Lincoln 
entitles  them  to  grateful  remem- 
brance. Gideon  \Velles  was  not 
prominent  even  in  New  England. 
Owing  his  appointment  of  Secretary 
of  the  Navy  to  the  Vice-President, 
he  receded  from  his  friendship  for 
Hamlin  when  Hamlin  passively 
withdrew  his  sympathy  from  the  ad- 
ministration. Lincoln's  memory  had 
no  more  earnest  conservator  than 
Gideon  Welles.  Bates  made  a  re- 
spectable Attorney-General,  but, 
with  Smith  and  Blair,  was  overshadowed  by  the  more  brilliant  lumi- 
naries of  the  war  time. 

When  the  attack  on  Fort  Sumter  precipitated  the  call  for  troops, 

and  made  a  called  session  of  tin1 
37th  Congress  necessary,  the  Re- 
publican leaders  of  1801,  outside 
of  the  Cabinet,  took  their  places 
in  the  line  and  staff  under  the 
President,  or  the  powerful  chiefs 
who  soon  began  to  contend  for  su- 
premacy in  the  party.  As  the  pre- 
vious Congress  had  been  a  Con- 
gress of  secession  and  concilia- 
tion, it  was  found  when  its  suc- 
cessor assembled  on  the  Fourth 
of  July,  1801,  that  it  was  to  be 
a  Congress  of  distrust.  In  the 
Senate,  Sumner,  Trumbull,  Chan- 
dler, Wade,  and  others  assumed  an 
attitude  of  doubt  toward  the 
LYMAN  TRUMBULL.  President  that  pained  and  humili- 

ated him,  and  would  have  serious- 
ly embarrassed  his  administration  had  not  the  younger  men  in  both 
Houses,  who  were  more  confident  and  more  generous,  come  to  his 


106 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY 


support.  Douglas  had  reached  the  end  of  his  long  career  in  the 
Senate  only  a  month  before,  dying  in  Chicago,  June  3,  1861,  but  not 
until  after  he  had  been  to  the  White  House,  where  he  had  proffered 
his  counsel  and  his  services  to  Abraham  Lincoln,  when  he  heard  of 
the  forced  surrender  of  Fort  Sumter.  His  Republican  colleague  from 
Illinois,  Lyman  Trumbull,  in  whose  behalf  Lincoln  had  waived  his 
claims  to  the  Senatorship  six  years  before,  was  less  impulsive  and 
less  hearty.  TrumbulPs  distrust  was  inexcusable,  because  he  not 
only  knew  Lincoln,  but  had  profited  from  his  generosity.  The  dis- 
trust of  Sumner,  Chandler,  and  Wade  was  inherent  in  the  men. 
Charles  Sumner  could  not  look  with  confidence  upon  Lincoln  in  1801, 
for  the  same  reason  that  James  M.  Mason  contemned  Sumner  in  1856. 
He  believed  himself  sprung  from  a  different  order  from  that  of  the 

man  that  all  the  world  now 
recognizes  as  belonging  to  the 
highest  type  of  manhood. 
Chandler  and  Wade  were  men 
of  coarse  fiber,  and  were  quick 
to  condemn  when  their  own 
ideas  of  fitness  were  disre- 
garded. In  the  House,  Grow  was 
made  Speaker,  because  of  his 
activity  in  the  anti  -  slavery 
struggle,  and  his  alertness  and 
fitness.  The  leadership  on  the 
floor  was  accorded  to  Thaddeus 
Stevens  by  common  consent. 
He  was  the  ablest  lawyer  in  Con- 
gress and,  after  Judge  Black,  in 
the  country.  This  explains  the 
doubtful  passage  attributed  to  the  two  men  in  court.  "  Do  you  wrish 
to  show  contempt  for  the  court?  "  the  Judge  asked.  "  On  the  contrary, 
I  am  trying  to  conceal  it,"  Stevens  answered.  His  wit  and  sarcasm 
were  biting,  but  he  was  without  humor.  Whoever  put  his  handle  to 
the  plow  and  turned  backward  he  regarded  as  an  enemy.  Mr.  Stevens 
had  not  supported  Mr.  Lincoln  for  the  nomination  at  Chicago,  prefer- 
ring Judge  McLean,  and  his  relations  at  the  White  House,  if  not  polit- 
ically hostile,  were  never  cordial.  Personally  Stevens  cherished  an  in- 
tense dislike  for  Lincoln,  and  some  of  his  bitterest  gibes  were  aimed  at 
the  sorely  tried  man  in  the  White  House.  But  while  Mr.  Lincoln  failed 
to  obtain  the  confidence  of  the  men  who  had  made  the  bitterest  as- 
saults upon  slavery,  he  was  never  without  a  powerful  following,  even 
in  the  hours  that  were  darkest  for  his  own  administration  and  for  the 
Union. 


'  ,\ 


THADDEUS     STEVENS. 


REPUBLICAN   LEADERS   OF   1861.  107 

The  37th  Congress  was  prolific  of  inen  who  were  to  make  a  profound 
impression  upon  the  country  and  become  the  leaders  of  the  party. 
In  the  Senate  were  Henry  8.  Lane,  of  Indiana,  who  had  played  such 
a  conspicuous  part  in  the  nomination  of  Lincoln  at  Chicago;  James 
Harlan,  of  Iowa;  John  Sherman,  of  Ohio,  who  had  been  transferred 
from  the  House  when  Chase  entered  the  Cabinet;  David  Wilmot,  the 
successor  of  Cameron  from  Pennsylvania;  Ira  Harris,  of  New  York, 
who  took  the  seat  vacated  by  Seward;  Henry  B.  Anthony,  beginning 
a  life-long  service  from  Khode  Island;  and  James  H.  Lane  and  Samuel 
C.  Pomeroy,  representing  the  new  Free  State  of  Kansas,  after  the 
complete  success  of  the  conflict  for  freedom.  Among  the  older  Sen- 
ators, who  were  not  found  wanting  in  the  hour  of  trial,  were  William 
Pitt  Fessenden,  of  Maine;  Hale  and  Clark,  of  New  Hampshire: 
Baker,  of  Oregon;  Foot  and  Collamer,  of  Vermont,  and  Doolittle,  of 
Wisconsin.  In  the  House  there  was  a  long  array  of  new  names,  after- 
ward distinguished — Aaron  A.  Sargent,  of  California;  Isaac  N.Arnold, 
of  Illinois;  George  W.  Julian  and  John  C.  P.  Shanks,  of  Indiana;  Sam- 
uel Hooper,  of  Massachusetts;  Francis  P.  Blair,  Jr.,  of  Missouri;  Ed- 
ward H.  Rollins,  of  New  Hampshire;  William  A.  Wheeler,  of  New 
York;  Samuel  Shellabarger,  of  Ohio;  William  D.  Kelley,  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, and  William  P.  Sheffield,  of  Rhode  Island.  The  most  conspicu- 
ous of  the  Republican  Congressmen,  who  overlapped  the  ante-bell  urn  and 
poxt-bellum  periods,  were  Schuyler  Colfax,  Roscoe  Conkling,  R.  E.  Fen- 
ton,  Galusha  A.  Grow,  Owen  Lovejoy,  Horace  Maynard,  E.  G.  Spauld- 
ing,  and  E.  B.  Washburne.  It  needs  to  be  said,  however,  that  the  Con- 
gresses of  the  war  period  afforded  a  less  favorable  field  for  political 
distinction  than  was  presented  in  the  Congresses  of  the  period  of 
reconstruction. 

It  was  one  of  the  conditions  of  the  civil  war  that  much  of  the  politi- 
cal power  of  the  period  was  in  the  hands  of  the  Governors  of  the  Re- 
publican States.  The  hearty  co-operation  of  the  War  Governors  of 
1801  with  the  President  served  as  an  incitement  to  the  friends  of  the 
administration  in  Congress,  and  neutralized  the  spirit  of  distrust 
evinced  by  such  men  as  Sumner  and  Wade  in  the  Senate,  and  Stevens 
and  Lovejoy  in  the  House.  The  three  most  commanding  figures 
among  the  War  Governors  of  1861  were  Andrew  G.  Curtin,  of  Penn- 
sylvania; Oliver  P.  Morton,  of  Indiana,  and  John  A.  Andrew,  of 
Massachusetts.  Among  these  Governor  Curtin  was  easily  first  be- 
cause of  the  peculiar  relations  of  his  State  to  the  conflict,  the  fervor 
of  his  patriotism,  and  the  sincerity  of  his  attachment  to  the  Presi- 
dent. Curtin  was  the  first  to  marshal  his  State  for  the  defense  of  the 
Union,  and  the  leader  in  preparing  the  North  for  the  impending  war. 
In  this  service  the  geographical  position  of  Pennsylvania  counted 


108  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

for  much,  but  Curtin's  foresight,  earnestness,  and  enthusiasm,  and 
his  devotion  to  the  man  he  had  helped  to  nominate  and  elect,  were 
factors  of  even  greater  influence.  Next  to  the  magnetic  personality 
and  generous  exertions  of  Curtin  came  the  untiring  energy  and  un- 
conquerable will  of  Morton.  The  fervor  of  Andrew's  patriotism  was 
not  less  noble  and  unselfish,  and  the  bayonets  of  Massachusetts 
proved  more  than  a  match  for  the  distrust  of  Sumner.  In  New  York, 
Morgan,  in  spite  of  his  conservative  temper,  became  especially  useful 
in  the  support  he  brought  to  the  financial  policy  of  the  administra- 
tion. In  line  with  these  chiefs  of  command- 
ing influence  were,  for  New  England,  Israel 
Washburn,  of  Maine;  Ichabod  Goodwin,  of 
New  Hampshire;  Erastus  Fairbanks,  of  Ver- 
mont; William  Sprague,  of  Rhode  Island, 
and  William  A.  Buckingham,  of  Connecti- 
cut; with  Charles  Ogden  for  New  Jersey, 
and  for  the  WTest  and  Northwest  William 
Dennison,  of  Ohio;  Austin  Blair,  of  Michi- 
gan; Kichard  Yates,  of  Illinois;  Samuel  J. 
Kirkwood,  of  Iowa;  Alexander  W.  Randall, 
of  Wisconsin,  and  Alexander  Ramsey,  of 
JOHN  A.  ANDREW.  Minnesota.  It  was  feared  that  the  two  Pacific 

States,   which    had    Democratic   Governors, 

would  cast  their  lot  with  the  South,  but  the  patriotism  of  the  people 
withstood  the  treasonable  pledges  and  projects  of  the  politicians.  The 
relations  of  the  States  to  the  Federal  Government  in  the  conduct  of 
the  war  brought  the  War  Governors  in  closer  touch  with  the  adminis 
tration  than  a  Congress  swayed  by  political  considerations  was  able 
to  feel  until  after  it  was  brought  under  the  influence  of  the  loyal  peo- 
ple at  home  and  the  army  in  the  field. 

War  created  new  conditions,  and  the  new  conditions  brought  out 
new  leaders.  The  leaders  of  1861,  both  in  Congress  and  in  command 
of  the  armies,  found  themselves  superseded  through  the  force  of 
events,  and  the  statesmen  who  distrusted  Lincoln  were  relegated  to 
the  opposition,  or  lost  their  hold  upon  the  country,  just  as  the  galaxy 
of  Union  generals  of  1861  was  a  different  and  feeble  constellation 
when  contrasted  wTith  the  Union  heroes  of  1865. 


III. 

THE  WAR  FOR  THE  UNION. 

Lincoln  without  a  Policy — Seward's  Dominating  Ideas — Forts  Suin- 
ter  and  Pickens — Lincoln  Assumes  Full  Responsibility — Phases 
of  the  Slavery  Question — The  Peace  Advocates — Elections  of 
18G2 — Emancipation — Greeley's  Embarrassing  Course — The  Cab- 
inet Divided— McClure's  Comments  on  the  Proclamation — Demo- 
cratic Hostility  to  the  War — Compensated  Emancipation  Re- 
fused— Suspension  of  the  Habeas  Corpus — Democrats  Want  an 
Armistice — The  Conscription  Act — Vallandigharn — The  Draft 
Kiots — Elections  of  18(53. 


HEN  President  Lincoln  entered  upon  the  duties  of  his  high 
office  he  was  without  any  settled  policy  except  the  one 
purpose  that  was  always  uppermost  with  him — his  inflex- 
ible resolve  to  save  the  Union.  He  was  not  a  man  to  at- 
tempt to  do  the  right  thing  in  the  wrong  way,  or  at  the  wrong  time. 
All  his  utterances  on  his  historic  journey  from  Springfield  to  Wash- 
ington were  vitalized  by  one  dominating  aim — the  desire  to  win  the 
seceding  States  back  to  their  duty.  He  had  no  thought  of  instituting 
a  crusade  against  slavery  if  they  returned.  "  We  mean  to  treat  you, 
as  near  as  we  possibly  can,  as  Washington,  Jefferson,  and  Madison 
treated  you,"  he  said  at  Cincinnati,  addressing  his  words  to  the  slave- 
holders. "  We  mean  to  leave  you  alone,  and  in  no  way  interfere  with 
your  institutions;  to  abide  by  all  and  every  compromise  of  the  Con- 
stitution. .  .  .  We  mean  to  remember  that  you  are  as  good  as 
we — that  there  is  no  difference  between  us  other  than  the  difference 
of  circumstances.  We  mean  to  recognize,  and  bear  in  mind  always, 
that  you  have  as  good  hearts  in  your  bosoms  as  other  people,  or  as 
we  claim  to  have,  and  to  treat  you  accordingly."  He  still  hoped  that 
the  ebullitions  of  secession  might  not  be  as  serious  as  they  seemed. 
"  There  is  really  no  crisis,  except  an  artificial  one,"  he  said  at  Pitts- 
burg;  "  such  a  one  as  may  be  gotten  up  at  any  time  by  turbulent  men, 
aided  by  designing  politicians."  The  Inaugural  Address  contained 
no  threats  against  the  South,  unless  his  avowal  of  his  purpose  to 
keep  his  oath  to  maintain  the  Constitution  was  a  threat.  When  Mr. 
Lincoln  assumed  the  Presidency  the  war  on  the  part  of  the  South 
was  already  begun.  He  waited  for  the  successful  assault  upon  Fort 
Sumter  on  the  part  of  the  United  States.  The  interval  was  one  of  un- 


110  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

certainty  and  doubt.  The  weight  of  opinion  in  the  Cabinet  was  in 
favor  of  the  abandonment  of  Sumter.  To  provision  or  to  strengthen 
it  was  impracticable. 

Meanwhile  there  wras  a  rebel  "  embassy  "  in  Washington  vainly 
seeking  to  open  negotiations  with  the  administration.  It  had  two 
purposes — to  demand  the  evacuation  of  Forts  Sumter  and  Pickens 
and  to  indulge  the  Secretary  of  State  with  "  dreams  which  we  know 
are  not  to  be  realized."  While  Seward  could  not  receive  the  com- 
missioners, either  officially  or  informally,  he  permitted  Justice  Camp- 
bell, of  the  Supreme  Court,  to  become  an  intermediary.  Secretary 
Seward  was  in  favor  of  the  evacuation  of  Sumter,  and  he  told  Justice 
Campbell  that  it  would  be  evacuated  within  five  days.  Sumter  was 
not  evacuated,  and  the  interviews  with  Justice  Campbell  were  con- 
tinued. It  was  determined  to  supply  Sumter,  and  Seward  promptly 
informed  Campbell  of  the  intention.  Justice  Campbell  was  severely 
criticised  for  using  his  official  position  to  carry  on  this  intrigue,  but 
Seward  could  not  have  been  aware  that  it  was  an  intrigue.  It  was 
an  intrigue  on  the  part  of  both  the  parties  to  it.  Each  believed  he 
was  engaged  in  the  performance  of  a  patriotic  duty.  Seward  had  an 
abiding  faith  in  the  Unionism  of  the  border  States,  especially  Vir- 
ginia, and  he  was  coquetting  with  the  Virginia  Convention,  through 
George  W.  Summers,  in  much  the  same  way  that  he  was  coquetting 
with  the  Southern  Confederacy  through  Justice  Campbell.  He  sought 
to  make  Lincoln  a  participant,  without  making  him  a  confidant. 
Summers  was  invited  to  Washington  for  a  conference,  but,  pleading- 
important  business,  he  sent  John  B.  Baldwin  in  his  place.  Baldwin 
came  with  empty  hands,  and  he  came  too  late.  While  Seward  was 
giving  assurances  to  Campbell,  Lincoln  made  no  pledges  to  Baldwin. 
The  President  would  have  been  willing  to  order  the  evacuation  of 
Fort  Sumter  if  the  Virginia  Convention  could  have  been  induced  to 
adjourn  without  delay.  After  Baldwin's  mission  had  failed,  John 
Minor  Botts  offered  to  submit  the  propositions  that  Seward  had  so 
much  at  heart,  but  the  President  would  not  consent.  A  secret  expedi- 
tion, advised  by  Seward,  was  sent  to  re-enforce  and  defend  Fort  Pick- 
ens  and  the  other  Gulf  forts,  while  the  President,  wearied  at  last 
with  Seward's  tortuous  recommendations  and  Quixotic  projects,  had 
learned  that  he  must  be  President  in  fact  as  well  as  in  name,  if  the 
authority  of  the  United  States  was  to  be  asserted  and  maintained. 

Secretary  Seward's  course  during  the  first  month  of  President  Lin- 
coln's administration  was  a  series  of  the  most  extraordinary  assump- 
tions in  the  history  of  Constitutional  Government.  Mr.  Seward  was 
the  Pooh  Bah  of  the  period — the  first  in  peace  and  the  first  in  war, 
and,  he  was  prone  to  believe,  the  first  in  the  hearts  of  his  countrymen. 


THE   WAR   FOR  THE   UNION.  Ill 

His  intrigues  with  the  Southern  conspirators,  through  Southern 
Whigs  like  Campbell  and  Summers  and  Baldwin  and  Botts,  re- 
sulted in  nothing,  except  the  subsequent  charge  that  the  Government 
had  failed  to  keep  faith  with  the  conspiracy.  In  what  he  attempted 
to  do,  as  well  as  in  what  he  insisted  should  not  be  done,  his  acts  were 
as  inconsistent  as  his  arguments  were  illogical.  He  was  urgent  for 
conciliation,  for  delay,  for  the  exercise  of  his  own  matchless  powers 
in  crushing  out  conspiracy  by  finesse.  There  is  no  reason  to  doubt 
the  sincerity  of  his  belief  in  himself,  in  his  mission,  in  his  ultimate 
triumph.  "  I  have  built  up  the  Republican  party,"  was  the  thought 
that  dominated  him;  "  I  have  brought  it  to  triumph;  I  must  save  the 
party  and  save  the  Government.  To  do  this  war  must  be  averted; 
the  negro  question  must  be  dropped;  the  irrepressible  conflict  ig- 
nored, and  a  Union  party  to  embrace  the  border  slave  States  created." 
He  had  no  doubt  of  his  ability  to  dominate  the  President  by  his  tact, 
his  prestige,  the  support  he  would  be  able  to  command.  Lincoln  was 
to  be  a  mere  puppet  in  his  hands; — the  other  members  of  the  Cabinet 
were  to  be  treated  as  nonentities,  who  could  neither  help  nor  hurt. 
Relying  on  Lincoln's  simplicity  and  inexperience,  he  sought  to 
strengthen  his  influence  over  the  President  by  a  pretended  refusal  to 
accept  the  State  Department.  He  declined  on  the  2d  of  March,  and 
consented  to  withdraw  his  declination  on  the  morning  of  the  5th. 
Lincoln  met  Seward's  craft  by  a  craft  subtler  than  that  with  which 
he  was  dealing.  He  made  no  immediate  response,  keeping  Seward 
in  doubt  from  Saturday  until  Monday,  and  when  he  finally  wrote  his 
reply  he  remarked,  "  I  can't  afford  to  let  Seward  take  the  first  trick." 
He  was  willing  to  have  Seward  stay  or  go,  but  he  was  not  willing  to 
let  Seward  dictate  his  Cabinet  at  the  eleventh  hour.  "  Judd,"  he 
said,  when  he  was  asked  if  Winter  Davis  was  to  be  nominated  instead 
of  Blair,  "  when  the  slate  breaks  again  it  will  break  at  the  top." 

It  was  Blair  who  was  the  first  to  antagonize  Seward's  peace  policy 
in  the  Cabinet.  But  Seward's  policy  ruled  the  hour.  Seward  was  for 
publicly  proclaiming  surrender  at  Charleston,  and  secretly  preparing 
for  war  at  Pensacola  and  in  Texas.  He  felt  himself  fully  able  to  di- 
rect the  operations  by  land  and  sea — to  become,  as  it  were,  the  gen- 
eral of  the  army  and  the  admiral  of  the  fleet.  On  the  29th  of  March, 
with  the  question  whether  Sumter  should  be  provisioned  or  evacu- 
ated still  undecided,  the  President  ordered  an  expedition  to  be  made 
ready  at  New  York,  to  sail  on  the  6th  of  April.  Although  the  Secre- 
tary of  War  and  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  were  directed  to  co-operate 
in  preparing  the  expedition,  neither  was  informed  of  its  object  or 
designation.  The  Secretary  of  State,  however,  was  determined  that 
it  should  be  his  expedition.  WThile  Lincoln  was  made  to  seem  to  act 


112 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 


Seward  acted.  On  the  same  day  that  the  order  for  the  secret  expedi- 
tion was  made  he  took  Captain  M.  C.  Meigs,  an  engineer  officer  in 
charge  of  the  new  wings  of  the  Capitol,  to  the  White  House.  On  the 
way  he  explained  his  wish  that  Su  niter  should  be  evacuated,  but 
Pickens  defended.  His  object  was  to  secure  the  appointment  of  Meigs 
as  military  commander  of  the  expedition.  The  President  asked  Cap- 
tain Meigs  if  Fort  Pickens  could  be  held.  "  Certainly,  if  the  navy 
would  do  its  duty,"  was  the  answer.  Lincoln  then  asked  Meigs  if  he 
would  go  down  there  and  take  command,  but  Meigs,  with  the  true 
instincts  of  a  soldier,  pointed  out  that  there  was  a  number  of  majors 
already  there,  and  he  was  only  a  captain.  "  I  understand  how  that  is," 
said  Seward,  decisively;  "  Captain  Meigs  must  be  promoted."  As 
this  was  impracticable,  Colonel  Keyes,  General  Scott's  military  secre- 
tary, was  associated  with  Seward's 
plans.  On  Sunday,  March  31,  the 
Secretary  accompanied  the  two  offi- 
cers in  a  call  upon  General  Scott,  in 
further  pursuance  of  the  great 
scheme  of  military  and  naval  ad- 
venture. "  General  Scott,"  Seward 
said,  "  you  have  formally  reported 
to  the  President  your  advice  to 
evacuate  Port  Pickens ;  notwith- 
standing this,  I  now  come  to  bring 
you  his  order,  as  Commander-in- 
Chief  of  the  Army  and  Navy,  to  re-en- 
force and  hold  it  to  the  last  extrem- 
ity." "  Sir,"  replied  the  old  soldier, 
drawing  himself  up  to  his  full 
height,  "  the  great  Frederick  used 
to  say  '  When  the  King  commands  all  things  are  possible.' ' 

As  a  naval  expert,  young  and  daring,  Lieutenant  David  D.  Porter 
was  ordered  to  join  Keyes  and  Meigs  in  preparing  and  executing  the 
Seward  scheme.  The  expedition  originally  ordered  by  the  President 
was,  in  fact,  intended  for  the  relief  of  Sumter.  As  neither  the  Secre- 
tary of  War  nor  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  was  taken  into  the  confi- 
dence of  the  astute  Secretary  of  State,  the  two  expeditions  naturally 
came  into  conflict.  One  fine  morning  the  Commandant  of  the  Brook- 
lyn Navy  Yard  received  two  orders  "  to  fit  out  the  i  Powhatan'  to  go  to 
sea  at  the  earliest  possible  moment."  These  orders  seemed  identical, 
although  one  was  signed  by  President  Lincoln  and  the  other  by  Secre- 
tary Welles.  The  President  intended  the  "  Powhatan  "  for  the  Pickens 
expedition,  and  the  Navy  Department  destined  her  for  the  relief  of 


GENERAL    M.    C.    MEIGS. 


THE   WAR   FOR  THE   UNION.  113 

Sumter.  But  this  was  not  the  extent  of  Seward's  intermeddling.  On 
the  same  day  that  Mr.  Lincoln  signed  the  order  for  the  "Powhatan,"he 
signed  other  orders,  at  Mr.  Reward's  request,  that  were  still  more  re- 
markable. One  of  them  detached  Captain  Stringham  for  service  at 
Pensacola,  and  the  other  contemplated  the  sending  of  Captain  Pen- 
dergrast  to  Vera  Cruz,  on  account  of  u  important  complications  in  our 
foreign  relations."  When  the  orders  reached  the  Navy  Department 
in  duplicate  the  gentle  Welles  was  indignant,  and  he  hastened  to  the 
President  with  fire  in  his  eyes.  "  What  have  I  done  wrong?  "  Lincoln 
asked,  playfully,  when  Welles  entered.  He  had  signed  them  without 
reading  or  understanding  them,  and  he  recalled  them,  but  without 
giving  Welles  his  confidence  in  regard  to  their  significance.  Mr. 
Seward  had  also  submitted  to  Mr.  Lincoln  "  Some  Thoughts  for  the 
President's  Consideration."  It  was  in  this  remarkable  paper  that  he 
proposed  to  change  the  issue  from  the  impending  domestic  to  an  un- 
necessary foreign  war,  and  virtually  invited  the  President  to  abdicate 
in  his  favor.  The  Don  Quixote  of  American  statecraft  had  reached 
the  limit  of  his  madness.  To  his  suggestion  that  either  the  President 
must  direct  the  preposterous  policy  he  proposed  "  himself,  and  be  all 
the  time  active  in  it,  or  devolve  it  on  some  member  of  his  Cabinet," 
Mr.  Lincoln  answered,  "  If  this  must  be  done  I  must  do  it."  After  this 
Seward,  like  his  Spanish  prototype,  was  restored  to  his  right  mind, 
and  it  was  not  until  after  his  death  that  the  world  learned  how  acute 
had  been  his  aberration. 

While  the  Meigs  expedition  rendered  Fort  Pickens  secure  and  saved 
Key  West  and  the  Tortugas,  the  attempt  to  relieve  Fort  Sumter  pre- 
cipitated the  attack,  and  compelled  the  call  to  arms.  With  the  be- 
ginning of  the  war  the  political  questions  that  were  so  important  in 
Mr.  Seward's  mind  disappeared  in  the  uprising  of  the  nation.  It  is 
unnecessary  in  this  work  to  follow  the  fortunes  of  the  struggle  in 
their  military  aspects,  or  to  concern  ourselves  with  the  routine  of 
business  legislation  in  Congress.  The  called  session  lasted  only 
twenty-nine  working  days.  In  that  time  seventy-six  public  acts  were 
passed,  all  of  them,  except  four,  relating  to  the  military  and  naval 
forces  of  the  Union  and  the  needs  of  the  Government.  Only  one  polit- 
ical resolution  was  adopted — a  resolution  declaring  the  objects  of 
the  war,  in  which  the  purpose  not  to  interfere  with  slavery  in  the 
States  where  it  existed,  that  had  so  often  been  asserted  in  vain,  was 
again  reiterated.  The  act  in  which  provision  was  made  for  the  for- 
feiture of  all  claim  to  slaves  employed  in  the  military  or  naval  service 
against  the  United  States  can  not  be  fairly  classed  as  political.  Mr. 
Lincoln  regarded  the  passage  of  this  act  as  untimely,  and  he  would, 
perhaps,  have  disapproved  of  it  had  it  not  been  that  to  veto  it  would 


114  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

have  been  equivalent  to  an  admission  that  the  Confederate  States 
might  have  the  full  benefit  of  the  slaves  for  military  purposes. 
Secretary  Cameron  was  in  advance  of  both  the  President  and  Con- 
gress in  dealing  with  slavery  in  its  relations  to  the  war.  General 
Butler  declared  the  negroes  that  came  into  his  lines  in  the  Virginia 
peninsula  "  contraband  "  —the  origin  of  the  name  "  Contrabands  " 
for  runaway  or  captured  slaves — and  as  early  as  May,  1861,  Cameron 
instructed  him  not  to  surrender  slaves  that  came  within  his  lines  to 
their  masters,  but  to  "  employ  them  in  the  services  to  which  they 
may  be  best  adapted."  He  was  not  disposed  to  deal  harshly  with 
General  Fremont  because  of  the  order,  issued  in  August  of  the  same 
year,  declaring  free  the  slaves  owned  by  men  in  the  Confederate  serv- 
ice. This  order  was  annulled  by  the  President.  In  his  first  annual 
report  Cameron  advocated  arming  the  slaves  for  military  service,  but 
was  compelled  to  modify  the  report  by  an  order  of  President  Lincoln. 
Cameron's  forced  retirement  from  the  Cabinet  a  few  weeks  later  was 
not  directly  due  to  this  report,  but  it  had  its  effect  in  inducing  the 
President  to  yield  to  the  strong  pressure  for  his  removal. 

Lincoln  was  not  disposed  to  antagonize  the  powerful  element  in 
the  North  that  was  declaiming  against  a  war  against  slavery,  or  the 
obtrusive  sentiment  in  the  army  that  found  so  many  mouthpieces  to 
proclaim  they  were  "  not  fighting  for  the  niggers."  But  the  issue  was 
one  that  could  not  be  smothered.  It  came  up  in  Congress  in  the  win- 
ter of  1861-62  in  the  demand  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District 
of  Columbia,  and  notwithstanding  the  opposition  of  the  border  slave 
States  the  bill  was  passed.  In  a  special  message,  March  6,  1862,  Mr. 
Lincoln  recommended  the  passage  of  a  joint  resolution  looking  to  co- 
operation with  States  consenting  to  abolish  slavery,  with  compensa- 
tion for  the  loss  of  the  slaves.  At  this  time  Mr.  Lincoln  would  have 
consented  to  the  outlay  of  the  vast  sum  of  |400,000,000,  if  it  had  suf- 
ficed to  purchase  peace  without  the  disturbing  element  that  had 
caused  the  war.  A  few  months  later  he  became  convinced  that  only 
emancipation  would  render  the  complete  restoration  of  the  Union 
possible,  and  from  that  time  he  never  wavered  from  the  declared 
intentions  of  his  Provisional  Proclamation  of  September  22,  1862,  and 
the  epochal  Proclamation  of  Emancipation  of  January  1,  1863. 

There  always  was  a  peace  party  in  the  loyal  States  from  the  firing  on 
Sumter  until  the  surrender  at  Appomattox.  In  the  main  the  peace 
advocates  were  Democrats,  but  a  few  erratic  Eepublicans,  of  whom 
Horace  Greeley  was  a  type,  at  times  took  the  same  ground.  These 
two  elements  reached  identical  conclusions  from  diverse  premises. 
The  Peace  Democrats  wanted  slavery  preserved — the  Peace  Repub- 
licans sought  its  destruction.  These  Democrats  were  willing  to  pre- 


THE   WAR   FOR   THE   UNION.  115 

serve  slavery  without  the  Union,  while  the  Republicans  were  willing 
to  surrender  the  Union  to  slavery  in  order  to  form  a  Free  Republic. 
Both  were  noisy,  but  the  Peace  Democrats  were  dangerous,  while  the 
Peace  Republicans  were  only  amusing.  In  the  elections  of  1861  the 
peace  party  wras  not  seriously  felt.  The  great  body  of  the  Douglas 
Democracy  united  with  the  Republicans  in  the  autumn  elections  for  a 
vigorous  prosecution  of  the  war,  and  the  administration  was  sustained 
against  the  futile  efforts  of  the  pro-Slavery  Democracy.  But  in  1862 
the  outlook  was  discouraging.  The  Democracy  became  aggressive 
against  an  "abolition  war,"  and  for  a  time  it  seemed  as  if  the  Repub- 
licans would  be  routed  in  every  part  of  the  country.  In  Maine  the 
majority  for  Governor  was  reduced  from  an  absolute  majority  of 
26,694  for  Lincoln  in  1860  over  the  combined  opposition  to  a  little 
over  4,000.  This  was  before  the  Preliminary  Proclamation  of  Eman- 
cipation was  issued.  In  Vermont,  on  the  contrary,  the  administration 
majority  greatly  exceeded  expectations.  The  October  elections  were 
discouraging.  In  Ohio  the  popular  majority  against  the  administra- 
tion was  about  seven  thousand,  and  the  Democrats  elected  fourteen 
of  the  nineteen  Congressmen.  In  Indiana  the  reverse  was  overwhelm- 
ing, the  Republicans  carrying  only  three  of  the  eleven  Congress  Dis- 
tricts. In  Pennsylvania  the  Democrats  had  a  majority  of  four  thou- 
sand, and  one-half  of  the  Representatives  in  Congress.  A  Democratic 
Legislature  was  chosen,  and  Charles  R.  Buckalew,  a  Democrat,  was 
sent  to  the  United  States  Senate.  In  New  York,  in  November,  Ho- 
ratio Seymour  was  elected  Governor  over  General  James  S.  Wads- 
worth,  by  a  majority  of  nearly  ten  thousand.  New  Jersey  elected  a 
Democratic  Governor,  Joel  Parker,  while  the  Republicans  carried 
only  one  Congress  District.  Illinois  chose  a  Democratic  Legislature, 
and  sent  William  A.  Richardson,  the  Lecompton  leader  in  the 
35th  Congress,  to  the  United  States  Senate.  In  Michigan  the  reaction 
was  marked,  although  not  so  complete  as  in  Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illi- 
nois. In  Massachusetts  Governor  Andrew  was  re-elected  over  Gen- 
eral Charles  Devens,  a  Union  soldier,  who  ran  as  a  coalition  candidate 
against  the  emancipation  policy  of  the  administration;  and  Iowa, 
Kansas,  and  Minnesota  sent  unanimous  Republican  delegations  to 
the  38th  Congress.  California  and  Oregon  also  proved  firm.  These 
successes,  however,  failed  to  counterbalance  the  disasters  in  the  other 
States,  and  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  border  slave  States  the  President 
would  have  been  confronted  by  a  hostile  House  of  Representatives  in 
the  closing  years  of  the  war.  Delaware  chose  a  Republican  Repre- 
sentative, Missouri  contributed  a  majority  of  its  members  to  the  sup- 
port of  the  administration,  and  in  the  ensuing  year  Maryland.  West, 
Virginia,  and  Kentucky  finally  assured  a  working  majority  of  twenty 
in  the  House. 


116  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

The  defeats  in  the  field  were  the  real  causes  of  the  reverses  in  the 
elections.  From  Bull  Run  to  Antietam  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  had 
met  with  disaster  after  disaster.  With  Richmond  in  sight  McClellan 
had  been  driven  back  in  the  Seven  Days'  Fights,  and  compelled  to 
.abandon  an  enterprise  that  was  expected  to  end  the  war.  Pope  was 
beaten  on  the  unfortunate  battle-ground  at  Manassas  Junction,  wThere 
the  confident  Unionists  had  been  so  terribly  routed  the  year  before. 
Lee  had  boldly  thrown  the  army  of  Northern  Virginia  into  Maryland, 
and  had  again  met  McClellan  with  undaunted  courage.  It  was 
doubtful  whether  the  battle  of  Antietam  had  been  lost  or  won,  but 
if  it  was  a  victory  it  was  as  much  a  triumph  for  "  Little  Mac  "  and  the 
Democrats  as  for  Lincoln  and  the  Republicans.  As  a  Republican 
victory  it  contributed  nothing  to  Republican  success  in  the  ensuing- 
elections,  while  McCIellan's  removal  gave  deep  offense  to  every  man 
who  still  called  himself  a  Democrat,  whether  citizen  or  soldier.  Even 
the  "  soldier  vote  "  wras  cast  against  the  War  party  with  surprising- 
force,  and  when  the  37th  Congress  met  to  begin  its  last  session  it 
looked  as  if  Confederate  success  was  assured,  and  that  a  Democratic 
House  would  crown  the  triumph  wTith  terms  of  surrender  that  would 
meet  all  the  demands  of  the  South. 

Still  another  defeat,  as  disastrous  and  humiliating  as  any  that  had 
gone  before  it,  was  to  intervene  between  the  elections  of  1862  and  the 
formal  promulgation  of  the  Proclamation  of  Emancipation — the  utter 
discomfiture  of  Burnside  at  Fredericksburg.  Hooker's  failure  fol- 
lowed when  the  military  campaign  opened  in  the  spring  of  1803,  and 
Lee,  confident  of  bringing  the  war  to  a  close,  now  again  crossed 
the  Potomac  and  entered  Pennsylvania.  In  the  Southwest  Grant 
was  beleaguering  Pemberton  at  Vicksburg,  but  the  country  had  not 
yet  learned  to  expect  much  from  Grant.  Of  Meade  it  knew  as  little, 
and  it  cared  nothing  for  either.  But  with  the  capture  of  Vicksburg, 
and  defeat  of  Lee  at  Gettysburg,  the  war  was  only  beginning  in  its 
military  aspects,  and  from  that  time  it  meant  a  complete  political 
revolution,  as  well  as  hard  fighting  and  the  destruction  of  the  Con- 
federacy. 

When  President  Lincoln  was  contemplating  the  Emancipation 
Proclamation  he  was  alike  embarrassed  by  the  inconsiderate  demands 
of  the  Radicals  and  the  plaintive  entreaties  of  the  Conservatives  in  the 
Republican  party.  The  one  man  who  had  been  a  thorn  in  Lincoln's 
side  ever  since  his  election  was  Greeley.  Greeley  was  a  great  man, 
but  not  a  wise  one.  He  was  the  first  to  embarrass  Lincoln  by  making 
a  proposition  for  which  even  Buchanan  was  scarcely  then  prepared. 
"  Whenever  a  considerable  section  of  our  Union,"  he  said  in  the  New 
York  Tribune,  only  three  days  after  the  election  of  1860,  "  shall  delib- 


THE   WAR   FOR   THE   UNION. 


117 


erately  resolve  to  get  out  we  shall  resist  all  coercive  measures  de- 
signed to  keep  it  in.  We  hope  never  to  live  in  a  Eepublic  whereof 
one  section  is  pinned  to  another  by  bayonets."  This  cry  was  con- 
tinued until  the  assault  on  Fort  Sumter  made  coercion  no  longer  an 
issue.  Then  came  the  "  On  to  Richmond  "  cry,  which  ended  in  dis- 
aster and  humiliation.  Wrong  in  1860,  and  wrong  again  in  1861, 
Greeley  was  urgent  to  do  the  right  thing  at  the  wrong  time  in  1862. 
While  Lincoln  was  busy  with  the  Emancipation  Proclamation,  con- 
sulting his  Cabinet,  and  considering  it  in  all  its  aspects  and  bearings, 
Greeley  precipitated  himself  upon  the  President  in  an  "  Open  Letter," 
in  which  he  denounced  the  Executive  for  failing  to  enforce  the  Con- 
fiscation Act  of  1861  in  "  mistaken  deference  to  rebel  slavery,"  and  he 
accused  Lincoln  of  bowing  to  "  cer- 
tain fossil  politicians  hailing  from 
the  border  States,"  and  to  army 
officers,  who  "  evinced  far  more  so 
licitude  to  uphold  slavery  than  to 
put  down  the  rebellion."  This  let- 
ter brought  out  Lincoln's  famous 
reply,  in  which  he  said  that  if  he 
could  save  the  Union  without  free- 
ing any  slaves  he  would  do  it;  that 
if  he  could  save  it  by  freeing  all 
the  slaves  he  would  do  it;  and  that 
if  he  could  save  it  by  freeing  some 
and  leaving  others  he  would  do 
that;  adding,  "What  I  do  about 
slavery  and  the  colored  race  I  do 
because  I  believe  it  helps  to  save 
the  Union,  and  what  I  forbear  I 
forbear  because  I  do  not  believe 
it  would  help  to  save  the  Union." 

The  appeals  for  Emancipation  came  from  many  quarters,  and  the 
pressure  was  very  great,  but  the  opposition  was  not  less  strenuous 
and  determined.  The  Cabinet  was  divided.  Stanton  and  Bates  were 
for  its  immediate  promulgation  a  month  before  Greeley's  waspish 
letter  was  written,  and  when  Greeley  had  no  knowledge  of  what  was 
in  the  President's  mind.  Chase  was  for  arming  the  slaves,  and  de- 
volving the  duty  of  proclaiming  emancipation  upon  the  commanding 
officers  of  the  army.  Seward  was  for  postponement  until  some  im- 
portant military  success  afforded  a  favorable  opportunity.  Blair, 
with  the  instincts  of  a  politician,  saw  in  it  the  loss  of  the  elections. 
The  politicians  almost  to  a  man  took  sides  with  the  views  of  the 


HORACE  GREELEY. 


118  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

• 

Postmaster-General  when  they  were  able  to  get  Lincoln's  ear.  The 
best  statement  of  the  case  as  it  was  made  from  the  political  stand- 
point is  that  of  Alexander  K.  McClure. 

"  The  most  earnest  discussions  I  ever  had  with  Lincoln,"  he  wrote, 
"  were  on  the  subject  of  his  Emancipation  Proclamation.  I  knew 
the  extraordinary  pressure  that  came  from  the  more  radical  element 
of  the  Republican  party,  embracing  a  number  of  its  ablest  leaders, 
such  as  Sunmer,  Chase,  Wade,  Chandler,  and  others,  but  I  did  not 
know,  and  few  were  permitted  to  know,  the  importance  of  an  Eman- 
cipation policy  in  restraining  the  recognition  of  the  Confederacy  by 
France  and  England.  I  was  earnestly  opposed  to  an  Emancipation 
Proclamation  by  the  President.  For  some  weeks  before  it  was  issued 
I  saw  Lincoln  frequently,  and  in  several  instances  sat  with  him  for 
hours  at  a  time  after  the  routine  business  of  the  day  had  been  disposed 
of  and  the  doors  of  the  White  House  were  closed.  I  viewed  the  issue 
solely  from  a  political  standpoint,  and  certainly  had  the  best  of 
reasons  for  the  views  I  pressed  upon  Lincoln,  assuming  that  political 
expediency  should  control  his  action.  I  reminded  him  that  the 
proclamation  would  not  liberate  a  single  slave;  that  the  Southern 
armies  must  be  overthrown,  and  that  the  territory  held  by  them  must 
be  conquered  by  military  success  before  it  could  be  made  effective. 
To  this  Lincoln  answered :  '  It  seems  like  the  Pope's  bull  against  the 
comet ';  but  that  was  the  most  he  ever  said  in  any  of  his  conversa- 
tions to  indicate  that  he  might  not  issue  it.  I  appealed  to  him  to 
issue  a  military  order,  as  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Army  and  Navy, 
proclaiming  that  every  slave  of  a  rebellious  owner  should  be  forever 
free  when  brought  within  our  lines.  Looking  simply  to  practical  re- 
sults, that  would  have  accomplished  everything  that  the  Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation  achieved;  but  it  was  evident  during  all  these  dis- 
cussions that  Lincoln  viewed  the  question  from  a  very  much  higher 
standpoint  than  I  did,  although,  as  usual,  he  said  but  little  and  gave  no 
clew  to  the  bent  of  his  mind  on  the  subject.  I  reminded  Lincoln  that 
political  defeat  would  be  inevitable  in  the  great  States  of  the  Union 
in  the  elections  soon  to  follow  if  he  issued  the  Emancipation  Procla- 
mation; that  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  Indiana, 
and  Illinois  would  undoubtedly  vote  Democratic  and  elect  Demo- 
cratic delegations  to  the  next  Congress.  He  did  not  dispute  my  judg- 
ment as  to  the  political  effect  of  the  proclamation,  but  I  never  left 
him  with  any  reasonable  hope  that  I  had  seriously  impressed  him  on 
the  subject." 

It  is  a  fitting  acknowledgment  that  Mr.  McClure  made  after  many 
years  that  Lincoln  rose  to  the  sublimest  duty  of  his  life  while  he 
(McClure)  "  was  pleading  the  mere  expedient  of  a  day  against  a 


THE   WAR   FOR  THE   UNION.  119 

record  for  human  freedom  that  must  be  immortal  while  liberty  has 
worshipers  in  any  land  or  clime." 

While  President  Lincoln  was  anxiously  considering  the  question 
of  emancipation,  the  utterances  of  the  Democratic  conventions  in 
many  of  the  States  were  peculiarly  bitter  and  rancorous.  In  Penn- 
sylvania, in  1862,  the  Democratic  State  Convention  described  the  Re- 
publicans as  "  the  party  of  fanaticism,  or  crime,  whichever  it  may  be 
called."  After  more  than  a  year  of  war,  opposition  to  slavery  was  still 
more  criminal  than  secession  and  disunion  for  slavery.  The  hysterical 
declarations  of  that  time,  that  "  the  party  of  fanaticism  or  crime, 
whichever  it  may  be  called,  that  seeks  to  turn  loose  the  slaves  of  the 
Southern  States  to  overrun  the  North  and  enter  into  competition  with 
the  white  laboring  masses,  thus  degrading  their  manhood  by  placing 
them  on  an  equality  with  negroes,"  was  "  insulting  to  our  race  ";  that 
"  this  is  a  government  of  white  men  and  was  established  exclusively 
for  the  wThite  race  ";  and  that  "  the  negroes  are  not  entitled  to  and 
ought  not  to  be  admitted  to  social  or  political  equality  with  the  white 
race,"  seem  very  foolish  as  well  as  very  narrow  and  bigoted  now,  but 
then  appeals  to  race  prejudice  were  very  effective  weapons  for  weak- 
ening the  administration  and  discrediting  the  war  for  the  Union. 
In  Ohio  it  was  declared  that  "  it  would  be  unjust  to  our  gallant  sol- 
diers to  compel  them  to  free  the  negroes  of  the  South,  and  thereby  fill 
Ohio  with  a  degraded  population  to  compete  with  these  same  soldiers 
upon  their  return  to  the  peaceful  avocations  of  life."  Indiana  was 
red-hot  for  "  negro  exclusion,"  and  the  Democracy  of  Illinois  made 
the  distinct  declaration  that  a  war  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  could 
not  have  their  support.  These  were  the  issues  that  won  in  the  elec- 
tions of  1862.  The  shame  that  followed  the  election  of  Abraham 
Lincoln  in  1860  was  repeated  in  1862  as  the  answer  to  Lincoln's  Moni- 
tory Proclamation. 

In  spite  of  a  fatuity  into  which  they  were  led  by  fatuous  politicians, 
the  people  of  the  Free  States  were  sound  at  the  core,  and  the  people 
of  the  border  States  were  even  more  devoted  to  the  Union  than  in 
the  dangerous  months  of  secession.  But  in  the  border  Slave  States, 
as  in  the  belt  of  Free  States  that  fringed  the  skirts  of  slavery,  the 
politicians  hostile  to  the  administration  were  intractable.  Lee  had 
entered  Maryland  with  the  avowed  purpose  of  helping  the  downtrod- 
den people  of  the  State  to  free  themselves  from  the  yoke  of  the 
tyrant,  but  he  found  himself  in  a  land  where  he  was  regarded  as  an 
enemy,  while  McClellan's  soldiers  were  welcomed  as  friends.  Bragg 
had  gone  into  Kentucky  with  the  intention  of  rousing  a  fresh  revolt, 
and  as  he  retreated,  discouraged  and  beaten,  he  was  fired  upon  by  the 
people  he  had  come  to  champion.  But  the  politicians  of  the  border 


120  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

States  were  as  hostile  to  compensated  emancipation  as  the  Demo- 
cratic politicians  of  the  Free  States  were  hostile  to  "  freeing  the  nig- 
gers "  under  any  circumstances  or  for  any  reason.  A  bill  to  give  the 
loyal  slaveholders  of  Missouri  $15,000,000  for  the  emancipation  of 
their  slaves  was  so  strenuously  resisted  by  the  Democratic  Repre- 
sentatives in  Congress,  aided  by  the  rest  of  the  Democrats  from  all  the 
States,  early  in  1863,  that  the  measure  was  beaten.  Had  it  succeeded 
similar  relief  would  have  been  extended  to  Delaware,  Maryland,  West 
Virginia,  and  Kentucky.  Mr.  Crittenden,  the  venerable  champion 
of  conciliation,  could  not  be  persuaded  to  accept  even  compensated 
conciliation  when  it  involved  the  destruction  of  slavery.  He  scouted 
the  acceptance  of  United  States  bonds  in  payment  for  slave  property 
as  an  absurdity.  "  You  Southern  men,"  the  President  said  one  day 
to  the  eminent  Kentucky  Unionist,  "  will  soon  reach  the  point  where 
bonds  will  be  a  more  valuable  possession  than  bondsmen.  Nothing 
is  more  uncertain  now  than  two-legged  property."  And  so  it  proved. 
The  influences  that  controlled  the  Representatives  from  the  border 
States  in  their  opposition  to  compensated  emancipation,  and  the 
Democratic  leaders  in  the  North  and  West,  were  their  confident  belief 
that  the  war  was  a  failure,  and  their  expectation  of  the  intervention 
of  the  Great  Powers.  In  consequence  of  these  expectations  and  be- 
liefs some  of  the  Democratic  conspirators  were  looking  forward  to 
the  time  when  they  could  compel  an  armistice,  and  call  a  Peace  Con- 
vention with  or  without  the  consent  of  a  humiliated  administration. 
Lord  Lyons,  the  British  Minister,  was  made  the  depository  of  the  con- 
fidences of  some  of  the  Democratic  leaders  of  New  York  immediately 
after  the  election  of  Governor  Seymour.  "  The  subject  uppermost  in 
their  minds  while  they  were  speaking  to  me,"  Lyons  wrote,  "  was 
naturally  that  of  mediation  between  the  North  and  the  South." 
While  believing  that  it  must  come  they  were  "  afraid  of  its  coming 
too  soon  ";  it  would  be  "  essential  to  the  success  of  any  proposal  from 
abroad  that  it  should  be  deferred  until  the  control  of  the  Executive 
Government  should  be  in  the  hands  of  the  Conservative  party  ";  they 
told  him  that  "  the  object  of  the  military  operations  should  be  to  place 
the  North  in  a  position  to  demand  an  armistice,"  and  that  the  armis- 
tice should  be  "  followed  by  a  Convention  in  which  such  changes  of 
the  Constitution  should  be  proposed  as  would  give  the  South  ample 
security  on  the  subject  of  its  slave  property";  and  they  wanted,  if 
they  could,  to  bring  about  the  armistice  "  without  the  aid  of  foreign 
governments,"  but  "  if  it  appeared  to  be  the  only  means  of  putting 
an  end  to  hostilities  "  they  "  would  be  disposed  to  accept  an  offer  of 
mediation."  It  was  while  this  conspiracy,  which  was  the  result  of  the 
great  Democratic  triumph  in  the  elections  of  1862,  was  in  its  incipient 


THE   WAR   FOR  THE   UNION.  121 

stages  that  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  was  issued.  The  Procla- 
mation, in  itself,  was  not  abolition.  It  was  purely  a  military  measure, 
but  it  would  free  the  slaves  wherever  the  armies  of  the  Union  pene- 
trated while  the  war  lasted.  When  the  war  was  over  complete 
emancipation  would  still  remain  to  be  perpetuated  by  a  Constitu- 
tional amendment,  unless  the  amendment  came  sooner.  Its  imme- 
diate effect  was  to  delay  intervention,  and  with  the  delay  the  Demo- 
cratic hopes  of  mediation  vanished.  Gettysburg  and  Vicksburg  ren- 
dered the  dream  of  an  armistice,  such  as  the  Democratic  conspirators 
desired,  a  thing  impossible  of  attainment,  and  with  the  triumphs  of 
the  national  arms  came  renewed  triumphs  for  the  Republican  party 
that  made  the  great  Democratic  strength  in  the  38th  Congress  the 
sad  expression  of  the  despair  of  the  nation. 

Two  Acts  of  the  37th  Congress  were  especially  obnoxious  to  the 
Peace  Democracy — the  Act  authorizing  the  suspension  of  the  writ  of 
Habeas  Corpus  and  the  Conscription  Act.  There  had  been  many  mili- 
tary arrests  of  civilians  during  the  early  part  of  the  war,  and  some 
of  these  military  prisoners  had  been  held  without  regard  to  writs 
issued  by  State  or  Federal  judges.  These  arrests  were  wildly  de- 
nounced as  outrages,  and  as  most  of  the  "  State  prisoners  "  were 
prominent  Democrats,  noted  for  their  zeal,  activity,  and  earnestness 
in  misrepresenting  and  discouraging  the  war,  their  detention  was  the 
occasion  of  a  great  outcry.  These  victims  of  the  "  tyrant  "  included 
Charles  J.  Ingersoll,  an  eminent  lawyer  and  former  member  of  Con- 
gress from  Philadelphia;  James  W.  Wall,  an  avowed  enemy  of  the 
war,  of  New  Jersey;  George  W.  Jones,  previously  a  Senator  in  Con- 
gress from  Iowa,  and  Mr.  Buchanan's  Minister  to  Bogota;  Jacob  J. 
Noah,  a  Union  soldier,  whose  "  political  opinions  were  adverse  to 
those  of  the  dominant  party";  William  II.  Winder,  a  Marylander, 
nominally  of  Philadelphia,  who  wras  very  active  in  proclaiming  that 
"  the  Union  was  founded  on  fraternal  love  and  fellowship,"  that  "  it 
could  never  be  cemented  by  blood  or  upheld  by  the  bayonet,"  and  in 
deprecating  the  civil  war  and  deploring  its  consequences;  and  Dennis 
A.  Mahoney,  the  editor  of  the  Dubuque  Herald,  Iowa,  who  was  one  of 
the  prisoners  confined  in  the  "  Old  Capitol  "  prison  at  Washington. 
These  were  representative  opponents  of  the  war  in  the  North  and 
WTest,  in  whose  behalf  it  was  claimed  that  "  the  licentiousness  of  the 
tongue  or  pen  is  a  minor  evil  compared  with  the  licentiousness  of 
arbitrary  power."  Free  speech  was  to  be  accorded  to  every  man  who 
denounced  the  war,  proclaimed  it  a  failure,  misrepresented  its  pur- 
poses, and  discouraged  enlistments,  but  any  interference  with  these 
disloyal  acts  was  tyranny,  and  the  tyrant,  Lincoln,  was  denounced  in 
political  speeches  and  political  conventions  in  all  parts  of  the  coun- 


122  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

try.  The  effect  of  this  crusade,  at  first  disastrous  to  the  Kepublicans 
in  the  elections  of  1862,  was  felt  with  even  greater  force  in  the  draft 
riots  of  1863. 

One  of  the  ablest  and  most  vindictive  opponents  of  the  adminis- 
tration was  Clement  L.  Vallandigham,  a  member  of  the  37th  Con- 
gress from  Ohio.  When  secession  came  Vallandigham  opposed 
coercion,  and  was  constant  in  his  attempts  "  to  restore  the  Union 
through  peace."  For  "  publicly  expressed  sympathy  for  those  in  arms 
against  the  Government  of  the  United  States,  and  declared  disloyal 
sentiments  and  opinions,  with  the  object  and  purpose  of  weakening 
the  power  of  the  Government  in  its  efforts  to  suppress  an  unlawful 
rebellion  "  in  a  speech  at  Mount  Vernon,  Ohio,  Vallandigham  was  ar- 
rested by  order  of  General  Burnside  in  May,  1863,  tried  by  a  Military 

Commission,  and  sentenced  to  confinement 
in  Fort  Warren,  Boston  Harbor.  President 
Lincoln  modified  this  sentence,  and  directed 
that  he  should  be  sent  through  the  military 
lines  to  the  enemy.  The  language  imputed 
to  Vallandigham,  S.  S.  Cox,  in  his  "  Three 
Decades  of  Federal  Legislation."  claims  as 
his  own.  Cox  says  that  by  some  mistake  the 
provost-marshal,  or  some  other  reporter, 
gave  his  words  as  the  words  of  Vallandig- 
ham, and  that  he  swore  to  this  state  of  fact 
before  the  court-martial.  No  attention  was 
paid  to  the  genial  "  Sunset,"  who  was  not 
dangerous,  while  Vallandigham  was  very 

c.  L.  VALLANDIGHAM.         dangerous  indeed.     Had  he  not  been  rigor- 
ously dealt  with  he  would  have  had  the 

Peace  Democracy  of  Ohio  in  arms  against  the  Enrollment  Act  be- 
fore midsummer.  As  he  was  convicted  and  sent  South,  as  Cox  says, 
"  by  some  whim  of  tyranny,"  violent  resistance  to  the  draft  was  trans- 
ferred to  New  York  City,  where  the  Draft  Riots  of  1863  became  one  of 
the  most  startling  episodes  of  the  turning  period  in  the  War  for  the 
LTnion. 

The  Conscription  Act  was  rendered  necessary  by  the  discourage- 
ment of  enlistments  that  resulted  from  Democratic  opposition  to  the 
war.  The  Act  was  passed  on  the  16th  of  April,  1863.  Its  passage  was 
received  with  great  bitterness  by  the  Peace  Democrats  everywhere. 
It  was  not  the  kind  of  armistice  they  were  looking  for.  It  was  the 
Conscription  Law  that  was  so  hotly  discussed  by  Vallandigham  and 
Cox  at  Mount  Vernon,  and  denounced  "  in  defense  of  the  rights  of  the 
people  and  of  constitutional  liberty."  In  New  York  the  action  of  the 


THE   WAR   FOR  THE   UNION.  123 

Government  in  causing  the  arrest  of  Vallandighani  caused  great  ex- 
citement and  indignation,  and  at  a  meeting  of  Democrats  at  Albany, 
over  which  Erastus  Corning  presided,  it  was  denounced  as  "  the  as- 
sumption of  a  military  commander,"  for  reasons  mildly  described  as 
"  words  addressed  to  a  public  meeting,  in  criticism  of  the  course  of 
the  administration  and  in  condemnation  of  the  military  orders  of 
that  General."  The  whole  series  of  resolutions  adopted  by  the  Albany 
meeting  wTas  transmitted  to  the  President,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  answered 
them,  cogently  and  frankly,  in  words  that  have  an  interest  as  great 
to-day  as  wrhen  they  were  uttered. 

"  The  resolutions  promise  to  support  me,"  he  said,  "  in  every  con- 
stitutional and  lawful  measure  to  suppress  the  Rebellion;  and  I  have 
not  knowingly  employed,  nor  shall  knowingly  employ,  any  other. 
But  the  meeting,  by  their  resolutions,  assert  and  argue  that  certain 
military  arrests,  and  proceedings  following  them,  for  which  I  am 
ultimately  responsible,  are  unconstitutional.  I  think  they  are  not. 
The  resolutions  quote  from  the  Constitution  the  definition  of  treason, 
and  also  the  limiting  safeguards  and  guaranties  therein  provided  for 
the  citizen  on  trial  for  treason,  and  on  his  being  held  to  answer  for 
capital  or  otherwise  infamous  crimes,  and,  in  criminal  prosecutions, 
his  right  to  a  speedy  and  public  trial  by  an  impartial  jury.  They  pro- 
ceed to  resolve  '  that  these  safeguards  of  the  rights  of  the  citizen 
against  the  pretensions  of  arbitrary  power  were  intended  more 
especially  for  his  protection  in  times  of  civil  commotion.'  And,  ap- 
parently to  demonstrate  the  proposition,  the  resolutions  proceed: 
'  They  were  secured  substantially  to  the  English  people  after  years  of 
protracted  civil  war,  and  were  adopted  into  our  Constitution  at  the 
close  of  the  Revolution.'  Would  not  the  demonstration  have  been 
better  if  it  could  have  been  truly  said  that  these  safeguards  had  been 
adopted  and  applied  during  the  civil  wars,  and  during  our  Revolu- 
tion, instead  of  after  the  one  and  at  the  close  of  the  other?  I,  too,  am 
devotedly  for  them  after  civil  war,  and  before  civil  war,  and  at  all 
times,  'except  when,  in  cases  of  rebellion  or  invasion,  the  public  safety 
may  require  '  their  suspension.  The  resolutions  proceed  to  tell  us 
that  these  safeguards  '  have  stood  the  test  of  seventy-six  years  of 
trial,  under  our  republican  system,  under  circumstances  which  show 
that,  while  they  constitute  the  foundation  of  all  free  government,  they 
are  elements  of  the  enduring  stability  of  the  Republic.'  No  one  denies 
that  they  have  stood  the  test  up  to  the  beginning  of  the  present  Rebel- 
lion, if  we  except  a  certain  occurrence  at  New  Orleans;  nor  does  any 
one  question  that  they  will  stand  the  same  test  much  longer  after  the 
Rebellion  closes.  But  these  provisions  of  the  Constitution  have  no 
application  to  the  case  we  have  in  hand,  because  the  arrests  com- 


124  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

plained  of  were  not  made  for  treason — that  is,  not  for  the  treason 
defined  in  the  Constitution,  and  upon  conviction  of  which  the  punish- 
ment is  death — nor  yet  were  they  made  to  hold  persons  to  answer  for 
any  capital  or  otherwise  infamous  crimes;  nor  were  the  proceedings 
following,  in  any  constitutional  or  legal  sense,  '  criminal  prosecu- 
tions.' The  arrests  were  made  on  totally  different  grounds,  and  the 
proceedings  which  followed  accorded  with  the  grounds  of  the  arrest. 
Let  us  consider  the  real  case  with  which  we  are  dealing,  and  apply  to 
it  parts  of  the  Constitution  plainly  made  for  such  cases. 

u  prior  fO  niy  installation  here,  it  had  been  inculcated  that  any 
State  had  a  lawful  right  to  secede  from  the  national  Union,  and  that 
it  would  be  expedient  to  exercise  the  right  whenever  the  devotees  of 
the  doctrine  should  fail  to  elect  a  President  to  their  own  liking.  I  was 
elected  contrary  to  their  liking;  and  accordingly,  so  far  as  it  was 
legally  possible,  they  had  taken  seven  States  out  of  the  Union,  had 
seized  many  of  the  United  States  forts,  and  had  fired  upon  the  United 
States  flag,  all  before  I  was  inaugurated,  and,  of  course,  before  I  had 
done  any  official  act  whatever.  The  Rebellion  thus  begun  soon  ran 
into  the  present  civil  war;  and,  in  certain  respects,  it  began  on  very 
unequal  terms  between  the  parties.  The  insurgents  had  been  pre- 
paring for  it  more  than  thirty  years,  while  the  Government  had  taken 
no  steps  to  resist  them.  The  former  had  carefully  considered  all  the 
means  which  could  be  turned  to  their  account.  It  undoubtedly  was 
a  well-pondered  reliance  with  them  that,  in  their  own  unrestricted 
efforts  to  destroy  the  Union,  Constitution,  and  law,  all  together,  the 
Government  would,  in  great  degree,  be  restrained  by  the  same  Con- 
stitution and  law  from  arresting  their  progress.  Their  sympathizers 
pervaded  all  departments  of  the  Government  and  nearly  all  com- 
munities of  the  people.  From  this  material,  under  cover  of  '  liberty 
of  speech,'  '  liberty  of  the  press,'  and  '  habeas  corpus,1*  they  hoped  to 
keep  on  foot  amongst  us  a  most  efficient  corps  of  spies,  informers, 
suppliers,  and  aiders  and  abettors  of  their  cause  in  a  thousand  ways. 
They  knew  that,  in  times  such  as  they  were  inaugurating,  by  the  Con- 
stitution itself,  the  'habeas  corpus"  might  be  suspended;  but  they 
also  knew  they  had  friends  who  would  make  a  question  as  to  who 
was  to  suspend  it;  meanwhile,  their  spies  and  others  might  remain 
at  large  to  help  on  their  cause.  Or  if,  as  has  happened,  the  Executive 
should  suspend  the  writ,  without  ruinous  waste  of  time,  instances  of 
arresting  innocent  persons  might  occur,  as  are  always  likely  to  occur 
in  such  cases:  and  then  a  clamor  could  be  raised  in  regard  to  this, 
which  might  be  at  least  of  some  service  to  the  insurgent  cause.  It 
needed  no  very  keen  perception  to  discover  this  part  of  the  enemy's 
program,  so  soon  as  by  open  hostilities  their  machinery  was  fairly 


THE   WAR   FOR  THE   UNION.  125 

put  in  motion.  Yet,  thoroughly  imbued  with  a  reverence  for  the 
guaranteed  rights  of  individuals,  I  was  slow  to  adopt  the  strong- 
measures  which  by  degrees  I  have  been  forced  to  regard  as  being 
within  the  exceptions  of  the  Constitution,  and  as  indispensable  to 
the  public  safety.  Nothing  is  better  known  to  history  than  that  courts 
of  justice  are  utterly  incompetent  to  such  cases.  Civil  courts  are  or- 
ganized chiefly  for  trials  of  individuals,  or,  at  most,  a  few  individuals 
acting  in  concert;  and  this  in  quiet  times,  and  on  charges  of  crimes 
well  denned  in  the  law.  Even  in  times  of  peace,  bands  of  horse  thieves 
and  robbers  frequently  grow  too  numerous  and  powerful  for  ordinary 
courts  of  justice.  But  what  comparison  in  numbers  have  such  bands 
ever  borne  to  the  insurgent  sympathizers  even  in  many  of  the  loyal 
States?  Again,  a  jury  too  frequently  has  at  least  one  member  more 
ready  to  hang  the  panel  than  to  hang  the  traitor.  And  yet,  again,  he 
who  dissuades  one  from  volunteering,  or  induces  one  soldier  to  desert, 
weakens  the  Union  cause  as  much  as  he  who  kills  a  Union  soldier  in 
battle.  Yet  this  dissuasion  or  inducement  may  be  so  conducted  as 
to  be  no  defined  crime  of  which  any  civil  court  would  take  cog- 
nizance. 

"  Ours  is  a  case  of  rebellion — so  called  by  the  resolutions  before 
me — in  fact,  a  clear,  flagrant,  and  gigantic  case  of  rebellion;  and  the 
provision  of  the  Constitution,  that '  the  privilege  of  the  writ  of  habeas 
corpus  shall  not  be  suspended,  unless  when,  in  cases  of  rebellion  or 
invasion,  the  public  safety  may  require  it,'  is  the  provision  which 
specially  applies  to  our  present  case.  This  provision  plainly  attests 
the  understanding  of  those  who  made  the  Constitution,  that  ordinary 
courts  of  justice  are  inadequate  to  '  cases  of  rebellion  ' — attests  their 
purpose  that,  in  such  cases,  men  may  be  held  in  custody  whom  the 
courts,  acting  on  ordinary  rules,  would  discharge.  Habeas  corpus 
does  not  discharge  men  who  are  proved  to  be  guilty  of  defined  crime; 
and  its  suspension  is  allowed  by  the  Constitution  on  purpose  that 
men  may  be  arrested  and  held  who  can  not  be  proved  to  be  guilty  of 
defined  crime,  '  when,  in  cases  of  rebellion  or  invasion,  the  public 
safety  may  require  it.' 

"  This  is  precisely  our  present  case — a  case  of  rebellion,  wherein  the 
public  safety  does  require  the  suspension.  Indeed,  arrests  by  process 
of  courts  and  arrests  in  cases  of  rebellion  do  not  proceed  altogether 
upon  the  same  basis.  The  former  is  directed  at  the  small  percentage 
of  ordinary  and  continuous  perpetration  of  crime;  while  the  latter  is 
directed  at  sudden  and  extensive  uprisings  against  the  Government, 
which,  at  most,  will  succeed  or  fail  in  no  great  length  of  time.  In  the 
latter  case,  arrests  are  made,  not  so  much  for  what  has  been  done,  as 
for  what  probably  would  be  done.  The  latter  is  more  for  the  pre- 


126  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

ventive  and  less  for  the  vindictive  than  the  former.  In  such  cases, 
the  purposes  of  men  are  much  more  easily  understood  than  in  cases 
of  ordinary  crime.  The  man  who  stands  by  and  says  nothing,  when 
the  peril  of  his  government  is  discussed,  can  not  be  misunderstood. 
If  not  hindered,  he  is  sure  to  help  the  enemy;  much  more,  if  he  talks 
ambiguously — talks  for  his  country  with  '  buts  '  and  i  ifs  '  and  '  auds.' 
Of  how  little  value  the  constitutional  provisions  I  have  quoted  will 
be  rendered  if  arrests  shall  never  be  made  until  defined  crimes  shall 
have  been  committed,  may  be  illustrated  by  few  notable  examples. 
General  John  C.  Breckinridge,  General  Robert  E.  Lee,  General  Joseph 
E.  Johnston,  General  John  B.  Magruder,  General  William  Preston, 
General  Simon  B.  Buckner,  and  Commodore  Franklin  Buchanan, 
now  occupying  the  very  highest  places  in  the  rebel  war  service,  were 
nil  within  the  power  of  the  Government  since  the  Rebellion  began, 
and  wrere  nearly  as  well  known  to  be  traitors  then  as  now.  Unques- 
lionably,  if  we  had  seized  them,  the  insurgent  cause  would  be  much 
weaker.  But  no  one  of  them  had  then  committed  any  crime  defined  in 
the  law.  Every  one  of  them,  if  arrested,  would  have  been  discharged 
on  habeas  corpus,  were  the  writ  allowed  to  operate.  In  view  of  these 
and  similar  cases,  I  think  the  time  not  unlikely  to  come  when  I  shall 
be  blamed  for  having  made  too  fewT  arrests  rather  than  too  many. 

"  By  the  third  resolution,  the  meeting  indicate  their  opinion  that 
military  arrests  may  be  constitutional  in  localities  where  rebellion 
exists,  but  that  such  arrests  are  unconstitutional  in  localities  where 
rebellion  or  insurrection  does  not  actually  exist.  They  insist  that 
such  arrests  shall  not  be  made  '  outside  of  the  lines  of  necessary 
military  occupation  and  the  scenes  of  insurrection.'  Inasmuch,  how- 
ever, as  the  Constitution  itself  makes  no  such  distinction,  I  am  unable 
to  believe  that  there  is  any  such  constitutional  distinction.  I  concede 
that  the  class  of  arrests  complained  of  can  be  constitutional  only 
when,  in  cases  of  rebellion  or  invasion,  the  public  safety  may  require 
them,  and  I  insist  that  in  such  cases  they  are  constitutional  wherever 
the  public  safety  does  require  them;  as  well  in  places  to  which  they 
may  prevent  the  rebellion  extending,  as  in  those  where  it  may  be 
already  prevailing;  as  well  where  they  may  restrain  mischievous  in- 
terference with  the  raising  and  supplying  of  armies  to  suppress  the 
rebellion,  as  where  the  rebellion  may  actually  be;  as  well  where  they 
may  restrain  the  enticing  men  out  of  the  army,  as  where  they  would 
prevent  mutinj^  in  the  army;  equally  constitutional  at  all  places  where 
they  will  conduce  to  the  public  safety,  as  against  the  dangers  of  re- 
bellion or  invasion.  Take  the  peculiar  case  mentioned  by  the  meeting. 
It  is  asserted,  in  substance,  that  Mr.  Vallandigham  was,  by  a  military 
commander,  seized  and  tried  '  for  no  other  reason  than  wrords  ad- 


THE   WAR   FOR   THE   UNION.  127 

dressed  to  a  public  meeting,  in  criticism  of  the  course  of  the  adminis- 
tration, and  in  condemnation  of  the  military  orders  of  the  General.' 
Now,  if  there  be  no  mistake  about  this;  if  this  assertion  is  the  truth 
and  the  whole  truth;  if  there  was  no  other  reason  for  the  arrest,  then 
I  concede  that  the  arrest  was  wrong.  But  the  arrest,  as  I  understand, 
was  made  for  a  very  different  reason.  Mr.  Vallandigham  avows  his 
hostility  to  the  war  on  the  part  of  the  Union;  and  his  arrest  was  made 
because  he  was  laboring,  with  some  effect,  to  prevent  the  raising  of 
troops;  to  encourage  desertions  from  the  army;  and  to  leave  the 
Rebellion  without  an  adequate  military  force  to  suppress  it.  He  was 
not  arrested  because  he  was  damaging  the  political  prospects  of  the 
administration,  or  the  personal  interests  of  the  commanding  General, 
but  because  he  was  damaging  the  army,  upon  the  existence  and  vigor 
of  which  the  life  of  the  nation  depends.  He  was  warring  upon  the 
military;  and  this  gave  the  military  constitutional  jurisdiction  to  lay 
hands  upon  him.  If  Mr.  Vallandigham  was  not  damaging  the  mili- 
tary power  of  the  country,  then  his  arrest  was  made  on  a  mistake  of 
fact,  which  I  would  be  glad  to  correct  on  reasonably  satisfactory 
evidence. 

"  I  understand  the  meeting,  whose  resolutions  I  am  considering,  to 
be  in  favor  of  suppressing  the  Rebellion  by  military  force — by  armies. 
Long  experience  has  shown  that  armies  can  not  be  maintained  unless 
desertions  shall  be  punished  by  the  severe  penalty  of  death.  The  case 
requires,  and  the  law  and  the  Constitution  sanction,  this  punishment. 
Must  I  shoot  a  simple-minded  soldier  boy  who  deserts,  while  I  must 
not  touch  a  hair  of  a  wily  agitator  who  induces  him  to  desert?  This 
is  none  the  less  injurious  when  effected  by  getting  a  father,  or  brother, 
or  friend,  into  a  public  meeting,  and  there  working  upon  his  feelings 
till  he  is  persuaded  to  write  the  soldier  boy  that  he  is  fighting  in  a 
bad  cause,  for  a  wicked  administration  of  a  contemptible  government, 
too  weak  to  arrest  and  punish  him  if  he  shall  desert.  I  think  that, 
in  such  a  case,  to  silence  the  agitator  and  save  the  boy  is  not  only  con- 
stitutional, but  withal  a  great  mercy. 

"  If  I  be  wrong  on  this  question  of  constitutional  power,  my  error 
lies  in  believing  that  certain  proceedings  are  constitutional  when,  in 
cases  of  rebellion  or  invasion,  the  public  safety  requires  them,  which 
would  not  be  constitutional  when,  in  the  absence  of  rebellion  or  in- 
vasion, the  public  safety  does  not  require  them:  in  other  words,  that 
the  Constitution  is  not,  in  its  application,  in  all  respects  the  same,  in 
cases  of  rebellion  or  invasion  involving  the  public  safety,  as  it  is  in 
times  of  profound  peace  and  public  security.  The  Constitution  itself 
makes  the  distinction;  and  I  can  no  more  be  persuaded  that  the  Gov- 
ernment can  constitutionally  take  no  strong  measures  in  time  of 


128  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

rebellion,  because  it  can  be  shown  that  the  same  could  not  be  law- 
fully taken  in  time  of  peace,  than  I  can  be  persuaded  that  a  particular 
drug  is  not  good  medicine  for  a  sick  man,  because  it  can  be  shown  not 
to  be  a  good  food  for  a  well  one.  Nor  am  I  able  to  appreciate  the 
danger  apprehended  by  the  meeting,  that  the  American  people  will, 
by  means  of  military  arrests  during  the  Rebellion,  lose  the  right  of 
public  discussion,  the  liberty  of  speech  and  the  press,  the  law  of  evi- 
dence, trial  by  jury,  and  habeas  corpus,,  throughout  the  definite  peace- 
ful future,  which  I  trust  lies  before  them,  any  more  than  I  am  able  to 
believe  that  a  man  could  contract  so  strong  an  appetite  for  emetics 
during  a  temporary  illness  as  to  persist  in  feeding  upon  them  during 
the  remainder  of  his  healthful  life. 

"  One  of  the  resolutions  expresses  the  opinion  of  the  meeting  that 
arbitrary  arrests  will  have  the  effect  to  divide  and  distract  those  who 
should  be  united  in  suppressing  the  Rebellion;  and  I  am  specifically 
called  on  to  discharge  Mr.  Vallandigham.  I  regard  this  as,  at  least, 
a  fair  appeal  to  me  on  the  expediency  of  exercising  a  constitutional 
power  which  I  think  exists.  In  response  to  such  appeal,  I  have  to  say, 
it  gave  me  pain  when  I  learned  that  Mr.  Vallandigham  had  been  ar- 
rested— that  is,  I  was  pained  that  there  should  have  seemed  to  be  a 
necessity  for  arresting  him — and  that  it  will  afford  me  great  pleasure 
to  discharge  him  so  soon  as  I  can,  by  any  means,  believe  the  public 
safety  will  not  suffer  by  it." 

The  Ohio  Democracy  nominated  the  exiled  Vallandigham  for  Gov- 
ernor, but  repelled  the  accusation  that  they  would  violently  resist  the 
draft.  New  York  City,  obedient  to  the  Ohio  teachings,  resisted  it.  As 
the  time  for  the  first  draft  in  the  metropolis  approached  the  Demo- 
cratic newspapers  were  busy  inflaming  the  passions  of  the  populace. 
According  to  the  World,  the  men  who  administered  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment were  "  weak  and  reckless,"  and  the  Congress  that  passed  the 
Conscription  Act  "  an  oligarchic  conspiracy  plotting  a  vast  scheme 
of  military  servitude."  The  Daily  News  talked  of  "  the  miscreants  at 
the  head  of  the  Government,"  and  counseled  opposition  in  the  courts. 
An  inflammatory  handbill  calling  upon  the  people  to  rise  and  assert 
their  liberties  was  circulated  on  the  eve  of  the  4th  of  July.  Meade's 
victory  at  Gettysburg  called  forth  the  loyal  sentiment  of  the  com- 
munity, and  the  appeal  came  to  nothing.  After  the  draft  had  actually 
begun  it  was  easy  to  excite  an  ignorant  population  to  arson  and 
murder.  The  riots  began  at  the  house  where  the  draft  was  in  progress 
at  Forty-sixth  street  and  Third  avenue.  The  officers  and  clerks  were 
dispersed,  the  enrollment  papers  destroyed,  and  the  building  was  set 
on  fire.  In  a  few  hours  the  rioters  had  increased  from  hundreds  to 
thousands.  The  riots  extended  over  four  days.  From  Monday  until 


THE  WAR   FOR  THE  UNION.  129 

Thursday  a  carnival  of  crime  ruled  the  city.  The  colored  population 
was  assailed  and  some  negroes  were  killed.  A  colored  orphan  asylum 
was  destroyed.  Enrolling  offices  were  wrecked  and  the  buildings  in 
which  they  had  found  quarters  were  burned.  The  outbreak  was,  in 
fact,  a  "  fire  in  the  rear," — a  diversion  in  favor  of  the  Rebellion.  The 
July  riots  of  1863  were  the  natural  outcome  of  Democratic  teachings 
throughout  the  war,  but  they  bore  good  fruit  in  one  respect — they 
helped  to  bring  about  the  revulsion  of  feeling  without  which  the  war 
would  have  been  a  failure  in  spite  of  the  victories  of  Meade  at  Gettys- 
burg and  Grant  at  Vicksburg. 

In  the  elections  of  1863  the  popular  verdict  of  the  previous  year 
was  reversed  in  every  State  that  had  given  Democratic  majorities  in 
1862.  Yallandigham  wras  beaten  in  Ohio  by  over  60,000  votes  with- 
out the  soldier  vote,  and  with  it  by  more  than  one  hundred  thousand. 
In  Pennsylvania  Judge  George  W.  Woodward,  the  Democratic  can- 
didate for  Governor,  who  had  joined  in  the  decision  of  the  Supreme 
Court  pronouncing  the  Conscription  Act  unconstitutional,  was  beaten 
by  Andrew  G.  Curtin,  the  War  Governor,  by  more  than  15,000,  and 
Chief  Justice  Lowrie,  who  had  pronounced  that  judgment,  was  de- 
feated by  nearly  13,000.  New  York,  which  had  given  Governor  Sey- 
mour a  majority  of  more  than  10,000  in  1862,  now  gave  the  Republi- 
can State  ticket  over  30,000.  In  Indiana  and  Illinois  the  shame  of 
1862  was  expunged,  and  in  all  the  other  Western  States  the  Repub- 
lican vote  was  largely  increased.  The  Peace  party  had  met  with  re- 
buke everywhere,  and  the  Republican  party  was  in  admirable  shape 
for  a  vigorous  prosecution  of  the  war,  and  a  successful  result  in  the 
Presidential  elections  of  1864. 


IV. 

THE  THIRD  REPUBLICAN  CONVENTION. 

Opposition  to  Lincoln's  Nomination — Chase  a  Candidate — The  Pom- 
eroy  Circular — Chase  Withdraws — The  Cleveland  Convention— 
Hamliu  and  Lincoln — General  Butler — Lincoln's  Preference  for 
Andrew  Johnson — Fremont's  Letter  of  Acceptance — Lieutenaut- 
General  Grant — The  Baltimore  Convention — Dr.  Breckinridge— 
Credentials — The  Platform — Lincoln  and  Johnson  Nominated— 
Dickinson — Johnson — General  McClellau's  Nomination. 

HE  political  interest  of  1864  centered  in  the  re-election  of 
President  Lincoln.  If  the  brilliant  victories  of  midsummer 
in  1863,  with  the  added  glories  of  Chickamauga  later  in  the 
year,  had  been  repeated  at  the  beginning  of  the  military 
campaign  of  18(51,  or  if  the  significance  of  General  Grant's  strategy 
in  Virginia  had  been  foreseen  and  understood,  there  would  have  been 
no  general  or  dangerous  opposition  to  Lincoln  in  the  Republican 
party.  As  it  was,  there  were  many  elements  of  discontent  to  be 
reckoned  with,  and  there  was  a  determined  opposition  to  be  encoun- 
tered and  overcome.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Lincoln  was  nerv- 
ously anxious  for  a  second  nomination,  especially  at  the  time  when 
his  chances  of  success  were  the  most  doubtful.  What  may  be  called 
the  latent  attachment  of  the  people  was  with  him  always,  but  the 
politicians  who  regarded  him  with  distrust  at  the  beginning  of  his 
administration,  and  who  were  never  in  touch  with  his  methods,  were 
hostile.  Greeley  was  laboring  diligently  for  his  overthrow.  Chase 
was  anxious  to  obtain  the  nomination,  and  for  nearly  a  year  before  the 
Republican  National  Convention  of  1864  both  he  and  his  friends  were 
making  every  possible  exertion  to  secure  it.  These  exertions  were  a 
source  of  much  discomfort  and  embarrassment  to  the  President,  and 
the  cause  of  clashings  and  heartburnings  in  the  disposition  of  the 
patronage  of  a  Department  that  through  it  could  exert  a  powerful 
political  influence. 

Mr.  Chase's  candidature  became  an  acknowledged  factor  in  the 
political  campaign  with  the  publication  of  what  is  called  the  "  Pom- 
eroy  circular,"  in  February.  This  circular  was  written  by  J.  M. 
Winchell.  It  was,  however,  as  much  the  work  of  Samuel  C.  Pomeroy, 
who  signed  it  as  chairman  of  a  secretly  organized  committee  of  Chase's 
friends,  as  if  he  had  written  it.  Pomerov  was  one  of  the  earlv  Free 


THE   THIRD    REPUBLICAN    CONVENTION. 


131 


State  men  of  Kansas,  where  he  went  as  one  of  the  managers  of 
Thayer's  crusade.  When  Kansas  became  a  State  he  had  his  reward 
in  being  chosen  a  Senator  in  Congress.  He  was  not  a  man  eminent 
for  ability,  nor  one  whose  name  would  carry  much  weight  in  the 
contest  between  Chase  and  Lincoln  for  the  Presidential  nomination. 
Chase,  however,  had  conferred  with  Pomeroy  and  others,  and  had  as- 
sented to  Pomeroy  becoming  chairman  of  a  committee  of  his  political 
friends.  When  the  circular,  which  was  intended  to  be  confidential, 
was  printed,  Chase  was  shocked  at  the  bald  phraseology  of  its  attack 
upon  the  President,  and  hastened  to  disavow  all  knowledge  of  it.  It 
called  for  "  counteraction  on  the  part  of  those  unconditional  friends 
of  the  Union  who  differ  from  the  policy  of  the  administration  ";  the 
friends  of  Lincoln  were  accused 
of  using  "  party  and  the  machin- 
ery of  official  influence  "  to  se- 
cure "  the  perpetuation  of  the 
present  administration"1;  and  it 
was  calmly  asserted  that  "  those 
who  conscientiously  believe  that 
the  interests  of  the  country  and 
of  freedom  demand  a  change  in 
favor  of  vigor  and  purity  and 
nationality  have  no  choice  but  to 
appeal  at  once  to  the  people  be- 
fore it  is  too  late  to  secure  a  fair 
discussion  of  principles."  The 
appeal  was  followed  by  the  fol- 
lowing conclusions : 

"  1.  That  even  were  the  re-elec 
tion  of  Mr.  Lincoln  desirable,  it 

is  practically  impossible  against  the  union  of  influences  which  will 
oppose  him. 

"  2.  That  should  he  be  re-elected,  his  manifest  tendency  toward 
compromises  and  temporary  expedients  of  policy  will  become  stronger 
during  a  second  term  than  it  has  been  in  the  first,  and  the  cause  of 

~ 

human  liberty,  and  the  dignity  of  the  nation  suffer  proportionately, 
while  the  war  may  continue  to  languish  during  his  whole  administra- 
tion, till  the  public  debt  shall  become  a  burden  too  great  to  be  borne. 
"  3.  That  the  patronage  of  the  Government  through  the  necessities 
of  the  war  has  been  so  rapidly  increased,  and  to  such  an  enormous  ex- 
tent, and  so  loosely  placed,  as  to  render  the  application  of  the  one- 
term  principle  absolutely  essential  to  the  certain  safety  of  our  re- 
publican institutions. 


SAMUF.L    C.    POMEROY. 


132  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

"  4.  That  we  find  united  in  Hon.  Salmon  P.  Chase  more  of  the  quali- 
ties needed  in  a  President,  during  the  next  four  years,  than  are  com- 
bined in  any  other  available  candidate.  His  record  is  clear  and  un- 
impeachable, showing  him  to  be  a  statesman  of  rare  ability  and  an 
administrator  of  the  highest  order,  while  his  private  character  fur- 
nishes the  surest  available  guaranty  of  economy  and  purity  in  the 
management  of  public  affairs. 

"  5.  That  the  discussion  of  the  Presidential  question  already  com- 
menced by  the  friends  of  Mr.  Lincoln  has  developed  a  popularity  and 
strength  in  Mr.  Chase  unexpected  even  to  his  warmest  admirers,  and 
while  we  are  aware  that  its  strength  is  at  present  unorganized,  and 
in  no  condition  to  manifest  its  real  magnitude,  we  are  satisfied  that 
it  only  needs  a  systematic  and  faithful  effort  to  develop  it  to  an  extent 
sufficient  to  overcome  all  opposing  obstacles.  For  these  reasons  the 
friends  of  Mr.  Chase  have  determined  on  measures  which  shall  present 
his  claims  fairly  at  once  to  the  country.  A  central  organization  has 
been  effected,  which  already  has  its  connections  in  all  the  States,  and 
the  object  of  which  is  to  enable  his  friends  everywhere  most  effectu- 
ally to  promote  his  elevation  to  the  Presidency.  We  wish  the  hearty 
co-operation  of  all  those  who  are  in  favor  of  the  speedy  restoration  of 
the  Union  on  the  basis  of  universal  freedom,  and  wTho  desire  an  ad- 
ministration of  the  Government  during  the  first  period  of  its  new  life, 
which  shall  to  the  fullest  extent  develop  the  capacity  of  free  institu- 
tions, enlarge  the  resources  of  the  country,  diminish  the  burdens  of 
taxation,  elevate  the  standard  of  public  and  private  morality,  vindi- 
cate the  honor  of  the  Republic  before  the  world,  and  in  all  things 
make  our  American  nationality  the  fairest  example  for  imitation 
which  human  progress  has  ever  achieved.  If  these  objects  meet  your 
approval,  you  can  render  efficient  aid  by  exerting  yourself  at  once  to 
organize  your  section  of  the  country,  and  by  corresponding  with  the 
Chairman  of  the  National  Executive  Committee,  for  the  purpose 
either  of  receiving  or  imparting  information.  .  .  ." 

This  remarkable  assault  on  the  administration  on-  the  behalf  of  one 
of  its  members  was  so  brutal  in  its  terms  and  so  unjustifiable  both 
in  form  and  substance,  that  it  could  not  fail  to  defeat  the  object  of  its 
authors.  Mr.  Chase  read  it  in  the  newspapers  with  a  feeling  of  keen 
disappointment  and  shame.  He  had  been  a  candidate  for  the  Presi- 
dency in  1864  ever  since  Lincoln's  election  in  1860.  The  sentiments 
of  the  "  circular  "  were  in  reality  his  own,  expressed  in  many  private 
conversations  and  letters.  Fie  was  active  in  promoting  a  reorganiza- 
tion of  the  War  Democrats  in  conjunction  with  the  Radical  Republi- 
cans, and  wrote  to  Daniel  S.  Dickinson,  of  New  York,  in  November, 
1863,  urging  him  to  attend  a  convention  at  Chicago  to  assist  in  "  the 


THE   THIRD    REPUBLICAN    CONVENTION.  133 

regeneration  of  the  Democracy."  He  wrote  to  Governor  Sprague,  of 
Rhode  Island,  a  few  days  later,  doubting  the  expediency  of  re-electing 
anybody,  and  expressing  the  belief  that  a  man  of  different  qualities 
from  those  the  President  has  will  be  needed  for  the  next  four  years. 
u  I  am  not  anxious  to  be  regarded  as  that  man/'  he  said,  "  and  I  am 
quite  willing  to  leave  that  question  to  the  decision  of  those  who  agree 
in  thinking  that  some  such  man  should  be  chosen."  While  expressing 
a  wish  not  to  press  his  claims  upon  friends  or  the  public,  he  took  care 
that  they  should  know  that  he  would  not  object  to  the  use  of  his  name. 
He  held  frequent  conferences  with  the  committee  of  which  Senator 
Pomeroy  was  the  chairman,  and  with  only  the  necessary  coyness  he 
assented  to  their  views.  He  was  especially  anxious  to  secure  the  sup- 
port of  the  Ohio  delegation  in  the  Republican  National  Convention, 
and  wrote  to  many  of  his  Ohio  friends  for  their  assistance  in  securing 
it  for  him,  but  in  none  of  these  letters  was  Lincoln  criticised  harshly 
or  the  administration  assailed.  In  his  letter  to  Sprague  he  declared 
that  he  would  not  permit  himself  to  be  driven  into  any  hostile  or  un- 
friendly position  as  to  Mr.  Lincoln.  The  Pomeroy  "  circular  "  placed 
him  in  the  attitude  he  had  sought  to  avoid,  and  upon  its  publication 
he  at  once  wrote  to  the  President  disavowing  all  personal  responsi- 
bility for  it.  "  For  yourself  I  cherish  sincere  respect  and  esteem,"  he 
said;  "  and,  permit  me  to  add,  affection.  Differences  of  opinion  as  to 
administrative  action  have  not  changed  these  sentiments;  nor  have 
they  been  changed  by  assaults  upon  me  by  persons  who  profess  them- 
selves the  special  representatives  of  your  views  and  policy.  You  are 
not  responsible  for  acts  not  your  own;  nor  will  you  hold  me  respon- 
sible except  for  what  I  do  or  say  myself."  The  President's  answer 
was  frank  and  manly,  but  for  Mr.  Chase  the  "  fat  was  in  the  fire."  A 
few  days  after  the  appearance  of  the  Pomeroy  circular  the  Republi- 
can members  of  the  Ohio  Legislature  passed  a  resolution  in  favor  of 
Mr.  Lincoln's  renomination.  This  expression  of  the  Republican  sen- 
timent of  his  State  induced  Mr.  Chase  to  withdraw  as  a  candidate. 

The  restless  spirits  in  the  Republican  party  continued  their  op- 
position notwithstanding  Mr.  Chase's  withdrawal,  and  a  convention 
was  called  to  meet  at  Cleveland  on  the  31st  of  May.  This  call  was  ad- 
dressed to  the  "  Radical  Men  of  the  Nation,"  and  was  signed  by  a  few 
of  the  irreconcilables,  including  the  Rev.  Dr.  George  B.  Cheever  and 
Lucius  Robinson,  of  New  York,  and  B.  Gratz  Brown,  of  Missouri. 
Wendell  Phillips  and  Frederick  Douglass  wrote  letters  approving 
the  movement.  The  meeting  comprised  about  300  persons,  none  of 
them  regularly  chosen  as  delegates.  William  F.  Johnston,  the  last 
of  the  Whig  Governors  of  Pennsylvania,  was  the  temporary  chairman, 
and  General  John  Cochrane,  of  New  York,  a  War  Democrat,  the  Presi- 


134 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 


dent  of  the  Convention.  General  John  C.  Fremont  was  unanimously 
nominated  for  President,  and  General  John  Coclirane,  with  a  few  dis- 
senting votes,  for  Vice-President.  The  platform  was  bold  in  terms, 
but  meaningless  as  a  practical  policy.  Its  most  sweeping  declaration 
in  favor  of  the  confiscation  of  the  lauds  of  rebels  and  their  distribu- 
tion among  Union  soldiers  and  sailors  was  repudiated  by  General 
Fremont  in  his  letter  of  acceptance,  and  remitted  to  Congress  by 
General  Coclirane.  The  ticket  commanded  no  appreciable  support, 
and  the  candidates  subsequently  withdrew. 

The  Republican  National  Convention  assembled  at  Baltimore  on 
the  Tth  of  June.  All  opposition  to  the  renominatiou  of  President  Lin- 
coln had  disappeared,  and  the 
interest  centered  in  the  candi- 
date for  Vice-President.  There 
was  a  strong  feeling  in  the 
party  for  the  "  old  ticket,"  but 
Lincoln  was  unquestionably 
unfavorable  to  Hamlin  as  his 
running  mate.  The  two  men 
wrere  not  sympathetic;  Hamlin 
neither  obtained  nor  desired 
the  President's  confidence.  He 
had  none  of  the  personal  at- 
tachment for  Lincoln  that  was 
felt  and  avowed  by  Chase  in 
spite  of  their  political  differ- 
ences. His  claims  to  a  renomi- 
nation  were  purely  sentimental 
claims,  and  these  were  of  a  na- 
ture with  which  Lincoln  could 
not  sympathize  to  any  great  ex- 
tent. Hamlin  was  one  of  the  doubters  of  Lincoln's  fitness  for  the  Pres- 
idency, and  would  have  been  willing  that  the  President  should  have  no 
real  share  in  Lincoln's  administration.  He  was  indifferent,  if  not  hos- 
tile, when  Lincoln  was  most  sorely  tried.  Their  positions  were  now  re- 
versed. Lincoln  was  not  only  openly  indifferent  to  Hamlin's  candida- 
ture, but  he  was  secretly  casting  about  him  for  a  candidate  to  take 
Hamlin's  place.  His  idea  of  the  candidate  for  Vice-President  was  that 
he  should  be  a  War  Democrat.  Hamlin  had  been  a  Democrat,  but  he 
ceased  to  be  one  long  before  the  war.  Lincoln  wanted  a  Democrat  who 
came  into  the  Republican  party  with  the  war.  His  first  choice  was 
General  Benjamin  F.  Butler.  Butler  had  been  an  extreme  pro-Slavery 
Democrat,  but  after  the  firing  on  Sumter  and  the  call  to  arms  he  was 


GEN.     BENJAMIN    F.     BUTLER. 


THE   THIRD    REPUBLICAN    CONVENTION.  135 

the  first  Union  General  to  treat  slaves  as  "  contraband  ''  of  war;  as  a 
soldier  in  the  field  he  had  not  proved  very  successful,  but  after  the  oc- 
cupation of  New  Orleans  he  held  the  captured  city  with  so  much  firm- 
ness that  he  was  an  object  of  universal  obloquy  in  the  South  and  with 
the  Peace  Democracy  of  the  North.  Butler  declined  to  become  a  can- 
didate, and  finally  the  President's  influence  was  quietly  exerted  for  the 
nomination  of  Andrew  Johnson,  of  Tennessee.  There  has  been  much 
dispute  in  regard  to  President  Lincoln's  share  in  the  nomination  of 
Johnson,  but  that  he  favored  and  promoted  it  may  be  accepted  as 
proved. 

Three  years'  contact  with  politicians  as  astute  as  Seward  and  Chase, 
and  with  the  little  army  of  political  organizers  that  encamped  in  the 
White  House,  had  made  Abraham  Lincoln  a  shrewd  manager  in  poli- 
tics. When  he  determined  that  Johnson  should  be  his  associate  on  the 
ticket  he  brought  the  necessary  influences  to  bear  upon  his  purpose 
with  remarkable  skill.  It  w^as  part  of  Lincoln's  characteristics  that 
he  gave  a  share  of  his  confidence  to  many  men,  but  his  full  confidence 
to  no  man.  If  he  had  not  wished  for  Johnson's  nomination  it  would 
not  have  been  made.  Johnson  was  not  the  personal  choice  of  any  of 
Lincoln's  friends.  Lincoln  brought  them  into  his  views  one  by  one, 
but  few  or  none  of  them  knew  that  he  had  conferred  with  the  others. 
He  imparted  his  views  to  Cameron,  but  did  not  tell  Cameron  that  he 
meant  to  impart  them  to  McClure.  He  gave  his  confidence  to  Mc- 
Clure,  but  McClure  was  not  aware  that  he  had  given  it  to  Cameron. 
From  Burton  C.  Cook,  the  chairman  of  the  Illinois  delegation,  he 
withheld  all  knowledge  of  his  purpose,  thinking  it  time  enough  for 
Cook  to  learn  what  was  expected  from  him  wrhen  the  time  came  to  act. 
How  far  he  consulted  with  Henry  J.  Raymond,  the  editor  of  the  New 
York  Times,  in  regard  to  Johnson's  nomination  is  not  known,  but 
Raymond  was  Lincoln's  manager  at  Baltimore,  and  he  diverted  the 
New  York  delegation  from  Dickinson  to  Johnson  while  it  was  still 
possible  to  nominate  their  own  candidate.  Seward  and  Weed  wrere 
both  consulted,  and  both  assented  and  assisted.  Leonard  Swett,  of 
Illinois,  who,  perhaps,  more  than  any  man,  had  Lincoln's  complete 
confidence,  and  Ward  H.  Lamon,  wrhom  Lincoln  brought  from  Spring- 
field to  make  him  Marshal  of  the  District  of  Columbia,  were  both  fully 
informed  in  regard  to  the  President's  wishes.  Lamon,  indeed,  was  fur- 
nished with  a  letter  declaring  Lincoln's  views  in  favor  of  Johnson's 
nomination,  that  he  was  to  use  if  its  use  became  necessary.  Hamlin 
and  his  friends  were  kept  in  complete  ignorance  of  the  fact  that  Lin- 
coln was  asking  his  friends  to  nominate  Johnson.  "  Lincoln,"  Swett 
said  to  him,  "  if  it  were  known  in  New  England  that  you  are  in  favor 
of  leaving  Hamlin  off  the  ticket  it  would  raise  the  devil  among  the 


136  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

Yankees."  The  secret  was  so  well  kept  that  Hamlin  learned  for  the 
first  time  that  Lincoln  was  active  in  promoting  the  nomination  of 
Johnson  only  a  year  or  two  before  his  death.  At  Baltimore  it  was  in 
the  air  that  Johnson  was  Lincoln's  candidate  for  the  Vice-Presidency, 
but  not  even  Swett  was  openly  for  him.  This  familiar  of  Lincoln 
bewildered  the  Illinois  delegation;  and  made  Cook  suspicious  of 
treachery,  by  telegraphing  a  request  that  the  delegation  should  sup- 
port Holt.  At  Cook's  request  a  letter  was  sent  to  the  White  House  to 
ascertain  if  Lincoln  was  behind  Swett.  "  Cook  wants  to  know  con- 
fidentially whether  Swett  is  all  right,"  John  G.  Nicolay,  the  Presi- 
dent's private  secretary,  wrote  from  Baltimore  to  John  Hay,  the 
assistant  private  secretary;  "  whether  in  urging  Holt  for  Viee-Presi- 
dent  he  reflects  the  President's  wishes;  whether  the  President  has 
any  preferences  either  personally  or  on  the  score  of  policy;  or  whether 

he  wishes  not  even  to  interfere  by  a  con- 
fidential communication."  The  answer- 
was  probably  sufficient  for  Cook,  but  it 
was  not  understood  by  Nicolay.  "  Swett 
is  unquestionably  all  right,"  Lincoln 
wrote  on  the  back  of  the  letter  from 
Nicolay  to  Hay;  "  Mr.  Holt  is  a  good 
man,  but  I  had  not  heard  or  thought  of 
him  for  V.-P.  Wish  not  to  interfere 
about  V.-P.  Can  not  interfere  about 
platform — convention  must  judge  for  it- 
self." This  meant  that  Swett  knew  what 
he  was  about,  but  that  the  President  was 

ANDREW  JOHNSON.  not  making  confidential  communications 

through  his  private  secretaries.  The  nom- 
ination of  Johnson  at  Baltimore  was  Lincoln's  nomination,  made  at 
Lincoln's  request,  for  reasons  that  he  was  very  earnest  in  urging.  He 
sent  for  McClm  e  to  urge  him  to  support  Johnson.  "  At  that  interview," 
Mr.  McClure  says,  "  Mr.  Lincoln  earnestly  explained  why  the  nomina- 
tion of  a  well-known  Southern  man  like  Andrew  Johnson — who  had 
been  Congressman,  Governor,  and  Senator  by  the  favor  of  his  State — 
would  not  only  nationalize  the  Republican  party  and  the  Government, 
but  would  greatly  lessen  the  grave  peril  of  the  recognition  of  the  Con- 
federacy by  England  and  France.  He  believed  that  the  election  to  the 
Vice-Presidency  of  a  representative  statesman  from  an  insurgent  State 
that  had  been  restored  to  the  Union  would  disarm  the  enemies  of  the 
Republic  abroad  and  remove  the  load  of  sectionalism  from  the  Gov- 
ernment that  seemed  to  greatly  hinder  peace.  No  intimation,  no  trace, 
of  prejudice  against  Mr.  Hamlin  was  exhibited,  and  I  well  knew  that 


THE   THIRD    REPUBLICAN    CONVENTION.  137 

no  such  consideration  could  have  influenced  Mr.  Lincoln  in  such  an 
emergency.  Had  he  believed  Mr.  Hamlin  to  be  the  man  who  could 
best  promote  the  great  work  whose  direction  fell  solely  upon  himself 
he  would  have  favored  Hamlin's  nomination  regardless  of  his  per- 
sonal wishes;  but  he  believed  that  a  great  public  achievement  would 
be  attained  by  the  election  of  Johnson ;  and  I  returned  to  Baltimore  to 
work  and  vote  for  Johnson,  although  against  all  my  personal  pre- 
dilections in  the  matter."  Similar  declarations  were  made  to  Swett 
and  Lamon,  and  Lincoln's  wishes  were  respected  by  the  convention 
without  the  delegates  understanding  fully  why  they  were  acting 
against  their  personal  predilections  in  the  matter. 

While  Lincoln  was  planning  for  the  displacement  of  Hamlin  on 
the  eve  of  the  Baltimore  Convention — it  is  unnecessary  to  say  plot- 
ting, because  as  a  candidate  for  re-election  his  wishes  in  regard  to  his 
associate  on  the  ticket  were  and  ought  to  have  been  paramount  with 
the  nominating  body — the  hope  of  preventing  his  candidature  had  not 
entirely  expired  in  the  breasts  of  his  most  bitter  opponents.  General 
Fremont's  letter  accepting  the  Cleveland  nomination  was  dated  only 
three  days  before  the  date  set  for  the  meeting  of  the  Convention  at 
Baltimore.  It  was  a  violent  assault  on  the  administration,  which  was 
charged  with  incapacity  by  a  soldier  candidate  whose  military  career 
had  failed  because  of  his  own  want  of  capacity,  and  arraigned  for 
infidelity  to  the  principles  it  was  pledged  to  maintain,  although  Lin- 
coln had  always  been  in  advance  of  the  great  body  of  the  Republican 
party  on  the  question  of  emancipation.  Fremont's  premature  policy 
of  1861  would  have  been  even  more  completely  repudiated  by  the 
North  than  was  Lincoln's  Monitory  Proclamation  in  the  elections  of 
1862.  This  arraignment  in  itself  could  do  Lincoln  no  real  injury  with 
the  delegates  already  pledged  to  his  support,  but  it  was  coupled  with 
an  intimation  that  might  have  been  effective  if  the  Radicals  had  shown 
themselves  capable  of  a  serious  diversion.  Fremont  hinted  that  if 
Lincoln  was  set  aside  he  would  retire  in  favor  of  the  Republican  can- 
didate, but  he  boldly  proclaimed  his  purpose  to  organize  all  the  ele- 
ments of  opposition  against  Lincoln's  election.  There  was  only  one 
man  whose  name  gave  any  promise  of  success  should  it  be  presented 
in  opposition  to  the  nomination  of  Lincoln.  This  man  was  Lieutenant- 
General  Grant,  whose  vigorous  operations  against  Lee  in  Virginia 
w^ere  arousing  the  admiration  and  enthusiasm  of  the  country.  After 
the  capture  of  Yicksburg  Grant  had  rapidly  risen  from  a  subordinate 
position  to  the  command  of  all  the  armies  of  the  United  States.  For 
the  first  time  since  the  beginning  of  the  war  the  capture  of  Richmond 
ceased  to  be  the  primary  purpose  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  and  the 
destruction  of  Lee's  army  was  made  the  main  object  of  the  campaign 


138 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 


in  the  East.  The  destruction  of  the  army  under  General  Joseph  E. 
Johnston  in  the  Southwest  was  the  task  set  for  General  Sherman. 
The  campaign  against  Lee,  under  Grant's  personal  direction,  had  be- 
gun with  the  bloody  battle  of  the  Wilderness,  on  the  4th  of  May  and 
subsequent  days.  The  bloody  battle  of  Spottsylvania,  and  the  opera- 
tions on  the  North  Anna,  the  Pamunky,  and  the  Tolopotomy  followed. 
On  the  3d  of  June  Grant's  army  made  the  fruitless  attack  at  Cold  Har- 
bor, that  was  afterward  so  severely  criticised.  For  the  next  day  a 
mass  meeting  was  appointed  to  be  held  in  New  York  city  to  voice  the 
gratitude  of  the  country  to  Grant  for  his  vigorous  campaign.  If  Grant 
had  countenanced  the  design  the  New  York  meeting  would  have  been 
used  to  bring  him  forward  as  a  Presidential  candidate,  but  he  per- 
emptorily refused  to  permit  the  use 
of  his  name  for  political  purposes, 
and  thus  all  hope  of  defeating  Lin- 
coln was  frustrated. 

The  third  Republican  National 
Convention  contained  more  eminent 
men  than  were  ever  assembled  as 
delegates  in  a  political  body.  There 
were  not  fewer  than  six  Republican 
Governors,  five  of  them  leading 
War  Governors,  on  the  floor  of  the 
Convention — the  eloquent  John  A. 
Andrew,  of  Massachusetts;  Marcus 
L.  Ward  and  William  A.  Newell,  of 
New  Jersey;  William  Dennison  and 
David  Tod,  of  Ohio,  and  Austin 
Blair,  of  Michigan.  Vermont  sent 
Solomon  Foot,  who  was  among  the 

faithful  in  the  United  States  Senate  before  the  war.  Among  the  New 
York  delegation  were  Henry  J.  Raymond,  the  gifted  editor  of  the 
New  York  Times;  Daniel  S.  Dickinson,  a  representative  War  Demo- 
crat, and  Lyman  Tremaine,  a  War  Democrat,  who,  like  Dickinson,  be- 
came an  able  and  eloquent  exponent  of  Republican  principles.  The 
Pennsylvania  delegation  contained  three  of  the  most  distinguished 
Republicans  from  that  State — Galusha  A.  Grow,  Thaddeus  Stevens, 
and  Simon  Cameron.  Among  the  delegates  from  the  Northwest  were 
Omer  D.  Conger,  of  Michigan;  Angus  Cameron,  of  Wisconsin,  and 
George  W.  McCrary,  of  Iowa.  Burton  C.  Cook  was  at  the  head  of 
the  delegation  from  Illinois.  As  a  whole  the  Convention  was  a  more 
sedate  body  than  that  which  had  nominated  Abraham  Lincoln  four 
years  before,  but  it  was  not  less  inspiring,  nor  does  its  work  embrace 
a  less  important  chapter  in  the  history  of  the  Republican  party. 


GEN.    U.    S.    GRANT. 


THE   THIRD   REPUBLICAN    CONVENTION.  139 

The  Convention  was  opened  with  a  brief  speech  by  Governor  Mor- 
gan, of  New  York,  Chairman  of  the  National  Committee,  in  which  he 
advocated  a  constitutional  amendment  abolishing  slavery.  Morgan's 
address  was  followed  by  the  announcement  of  the  selection  of  the  Rev. 
Dr.  Robert  J.  Breckinridge,  of  Kentucky,  as  temporary  chairman.  This 
selection  wras  the  occasion  of  one  of  the  dramatic  features  of  the  Con- 
vention. Dr.  Breckinridge  was  one  of  the  most  venerable  and  distin- 
guished divines  of  the  Presbyterian  Church.  He  was  a  Breckinridge 
of  the  Breckinridges — the  Breckiuridges  of  Virginia  and  Kentucky. 
Of  his  family  he  was  the  only  distinguished  member  who  remained 
true  to  the  Union.  He  was  eminent  for  his  piety,  his  learning,  his  elo- 
quence, and  his  great  skill  in  controversy.  He  was  a  man  of  resolute 
and  unyielding  character — aggressive,  inflexible,  and  courageous. 
When  he  took  the  chair  his  tall  figure,  strong  face,  and  patriarchal 
beard  marked  him  as  a  leader  of  men.  His  speech  was  in  keeping  with 
the  character  of  the  man  and  the  character  of  the  assemblage  before 
which  it  was  made.  It  wras  sharp,  sinewy,  and  defiant — bold,  broad, 
and  national.  Its  opening  sentences  proclaimed  his  own  uncompro- 
mising attitude  and  that  of  the  party  for  which  he  was  the  spokesman 
— "  the  nation  shall  not  be  destroyed."  He  dissipated  the  plea  that 
the  Constitution  was  a  shield  for  those  who  were  seeking  to  destroy 
the  Union,  and  exclaimed,  "  We  shall  change  the  Constitution  if  it 
suits  us  to  do  so."  He  made  no  humanitarian  plea  for  the  men  who 
were  seeking  to  break  up  the  Union,  among  whom  were  his  own  kins- 
men, but  declared  that  "  the  only  enduring,  the  only  imperishable 
cement  of  all  free  institutions  has  been  the  blood  of  traitors."  Recog- 
nizing slavery  as  the  institution  that  had  lifted  the  sword  against  the 
Union,  he  aroused  the  enthusiasm  of  the  Convention  by  the  announce- 
ment that  we  must  "  use  all  power  to  exterminate  and  extinguish  it." 
"  I  know  very  well,"  he  said,  "  that  the  sentiments  which  I  am  utter- 
ing will  cause  me  great  odium  in  the  State  in  which  I  was  born,  which 
I  love,  where  the  bones  of  two  generations  of  my  ancestors  and  some 
of  my  children  are,  and  where  very  soon  I  shall  lay  my  own.  .  .  . 
But  we  have  put  our  faces  toward  the  way  which  we  intend  to  go,  and 
we  will  go  in  it  to  the  end."  With  this  inspiring  prelude  the  work  of 
the  Convention  began. 

At  the  evening  session  A.  K.  McClure  made  the  report  in  behalf  of 
the  Committee  on  Organization,  recommending  William  Dennison, 
of  Ohio,  for  permanent  president.  Governor  Dennison  repeated  the 
sentiments  already  expressed  by  Governor  Morgan  and  Dr.  Breckin- 
ridge on  taking  the  chair.  There  wrere  no  disputed  questions  in  regard 
to  any  of  the  delegations  from  the  Northern  States,  nor  to  those  of 
four  of  the  border  States — Delaware.  Maryland,  West  Virginia,  and 


140  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

Kentucky.  But  there  were  two  delegations  from  Missouri,  and  Thad- 
deus  Stevens  objected  to  calling  the  roll  of  the  Southern  States  and 
receiving  their  delegates  on  the  ground  that  such  an  act  might  be 
regarded  as  recognizing  the  right  of  States  in  rebellion  to  vote  in  the 
Electoral  College.  These  questions  were  referred  to  the  Committee 
on  Credentials.  Preston  King,  of  New  York,  on  behalf  of  the  com- 
mittee, reported  in  favor  of  admitting  the  liadical  Union  delegation 
from  Missouri,  and  excluding  the  Conservative  Union,  or  Blair  dele- 
gation. There  was  probably  little  difference  between  the  two  in  the 
regularity  of  their  election,  but  as  the  latter  was  favorable  to  Lin- 
coln's nomination,  while  the  Radicals  supported  General  Grant,  it 
was  thought  to  be  good  policy  to  favor  Grant's  Missouri  friends  at 
the  expense  of  Lincoln's  supporters.  This  view  prevailed  in  the  Con- 
vention by  a  vote  of  440  to  4.  The  delegations  from  Tennessee,  Arkan- 
sas, and  Louisiana  were  admitted  to  the  floor  of  the  Convention  with- 
out the  right  to  vote.  The  delegation  from  South  Carolina  was  re- 
jected. Three  of  the  Territories — Nebraska,  Colorado,  and  Nevada- 
were  accorded  the  rights  of  States  on  the  ground  that  they  were  soon 
to  be  admitted  into  the  Union,  but  the  delegations  from  the  other 
Territories,  and  those  from  Virginia  and  Florida,  were  only  accorded 
admittance  to  the  floor.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Nevada  was  the  only 
one  of  the  three  favored  Territories  that  voted  in  the  Electoral 
College  in  1865. 

The  report  of  the  Committee  on  Resolutions  was  made  through 
Henry  J.  Raymond,  by  whom  the  platform  was  written.  The  resolu- 
tions enforced  the  duty  of  maintaining  the  Union  and  quelling  the 
rebellion  by  force  of  arms;  approved  the  determination  of  the  Govern- 
ment to  enter  into  no  compromise  with  rebels;  indorsed  the  acts  done 
against  slavery,  and  declared  in  favor  of  an  amendment  to  the  Con- 
stitution prohibiting  it  in  all  the  States;  gave  thanks  to  the  soldiers 
and  sailors;  applauded  the  practical  wisdom,  unselfish  patriotism, 
and  unswerving  fidelity  of  Abraham  Lincoln;  recommended  harmony 
in  the  national  councils;  claimed  the  full  protection  of  the  law  for  the 
colored  troops;  favored  foreign  immigration,  and  the  speedy  con- 
struction of  a  railroad  to  the  Pacific;  pledged  the  national  faith  for 
the  redemption  of  the  public  debt,  and  reaffirmed  the  Monroe  doc- 
trine. The  harmony  Cabinet  resolution  was  aimed  at  Postmaster- 
General  Blair,  but  it  was  conveyed  in  vague  terms  and  ought  not  to 
have  been  adopted.  The  reaffirmation  of  the  Monroe  doctrine  at  that 
time  was  also  a  declaration  against  the  practical  wisdom  of  Abraham 
Lincoln  in  not  driving  the  French  out  of  Mexico.  This  resolution 
wrought  no  harm,  for  the  President  was  fully  in  sympathy  with  its 
purpose,  although  he  was  too  busy  just  then  with  other  matters  to 


THE   THIRD    REPUBLICAN   CONVENTION.  141 

carry  it  into  effect.  As  a  whole  the  platform  was  elevated  in  tone,  and 
direct  and  unequivocal  in  expression.  - 

When  the  time  came  to  nominate  a  candidate  for  President,  Gen- 
eral Simon  Cameron  offered  a  resolution  declaring  Abraham  Lincoln 
the  choice  of  the  party  for  President,  and  Hannibal  Hamlin  its  candi- 
date for  Vice-President.  As  this  was  not  what  General  Cameron 
either  expected  or  wranted  to  be  done,  it  was  not  done.  The  night 
before  the  vote  was  taken  he  did  some  missionary  work  among  the 
Pennsylvania  delegation,  suggesting  that  after  casting  the  solid  vote 
of  the  State  for  Hamlin  it  should  be  given  solidly  for  Johnson.  This 
was  done,  but  some  of  the  Pennsylvania  delegates  would  have  clung 
to  Hamlin  if  his  nomination  had  been  possible.  If  the  Convention  had 
been  unanimous  for  the  old  ticket  Cameron's  resolution  would  have 
been  accepted  without  objection,  but  objection  was  made,  and  so  with- 
out taking  the  sense  of  the  Convention  by  insisting  on  a  vote,  Cam- 
eron withdrew  it.  Grant's  Missouri  friends  wranted  to  vote  for  their 
candidate  for  President  quite  as  seriously  as  the  friends  of  Johnson 
and  Dickinson  wanted  to  try  conclusions  with  Hamlin.  Accordingly 
nomination  by  ballot  was  ordered  in  both  cases.  Lincoln  received 
497  votes  to  22  for  Grant,  all  from  Missouri.  The  nomination  was 
then  made  unanimous.  On  the  ballot  for  Vice-President  Andrew  John- 
son, of  Tennessee,  received  200  votes;  Hannibal  Hamlin,  of  Maine, 
145;  Daniel  S.  Dickinson,  of  New  York,  113;  Benjamin  P.  Butler,  of 
Massachusetts,  26;  and  L.  H.  Rousseau,  of  Kentucky,  21.  There  were 
a  few  scattering  votes.  If  there  had  been  a  serious  purpose  to  nomi- 
nate either  Hamlin  or  Dickinson  it  was  possible  to  do  it,  but  without 
waiting  for  the  announcement  of  the  result  of  a  ballot  that  was  knowrn 

^ 

to  be  indecisive,  there  was  a  break  for  Johnson  that  was  continued 
until  he  had  492  votes  to  his  credit,  only  IT  of  Dickinson's  friends  and 
9  of  Hamlin's  remaining  true  to  them.  Such  a  result  would  have  been 
impossible  if  the  Convention  had  not  been  fully  impressed  by  the 
belief  that  Mr.  Lincoln  desired  it. 

Although  the  same  influences  that  defeated  Mr.  Hamlin  brought 
about  the  defeat  of  Mr.  Dickinson,  the  New  York  candidate  always 
attributed  his  failure  to  the  hostile  element  in  his  own  delegation. 
Mr.  Dickinson  had  many  qualities  to  make  him  a  strong  candidate, 
not  only  as  against  Mr.  Hamlin,  but  as  against  Mr.  Johnson.  He  had 
been  not  only  a  Democrat,  but  a  Hunker;  he  sustained  Secretary 
Marcy  and  Polk's  administration  against  the  powerful  influence  of 
Silas  Wright,  then  Governor  of  New  York,  when  he  entered  the 

~ 

United  States  Senate  as  Wright  was  leaving  it.  Such  was  his  popu- 
larity that  he  was  talked  of  as  an  available  candidate  for  the  Presi- 
dencv  as  earlv  as  1852.  When  the  war  came  he  declared  himself  un- 


142 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 


reservedly  for  the  Union,  and  the  administration  had  no  more  hearty 
or  eloquent  supporter.  He  was  a  man  of  fine  talents,  extensive  ac- 
quirements, and  great  legal  learning.  As  a  political  speaker  he  was 
distinguished  for  wit  and  repartee.  He  was  especially  apt  in  his  use 
of  anecdotes,  and  his  facility  in  applying  Bible  illustrations  gave  him 
the  nickname  of  "  Scripture  Dick."  He  was  besides  a  man  of  com- 
manding presence,  and  his  long,  silvery  locks  rendered  him  very  im- 
pressive. As  a  man,  as  a  lawyer,  and  as  a  statesman  he  was  greatly 
Johnson's  superior;  and  as  a  Union  man  and  a  War  Democrat  he  was 
as  deserving  as  his  successful  rival,  except  that  he  belonged  to  the 
North,  while  Johnson  came  from  the  South.  With  Lincoln  neutral 
and  his  own  State  united  in  his  support,  he  would  have  been  nomi- 
nated. The  opposition  in  his  own  delegation  came  from  the  Whig  ele- 
ment in  the  Republican  party  of  New 
York,  that  was  averse  to  the  political 
advancement  of  War  Democrats.  It 
was  even  claimed  that  his  election  as 
Vice-President  might  jeopardize  Mi-. 
Seward's  place  in  the  Cabinet.  On  a 
test  vote  in  the  delegation  he  received 
only  28  votes  to  32  for  Johnson  and  G 
for  Hamlin.  It  was  Raymond's  leader- 
si  dp  that  deprived  Dickinson  of  a  ma- 
jority of  the  delegation,  and  Raymond's 
only  motive  for  supporting  Johnson 
against  a  New  York  candidate  so  emi- 
nently worthy  was  the  wish  of  Lincoln 
for  Johnson's  nomination. 

If    Johnson's     character    had     beeu 
better  understood  lie  would  not   have 

secured  Lincoln's  preference,  and  with  it  the  second  place  on  the 
ticket.  The  same  qualities  that  attracted  Lincoln  made  him  a  favor- 
ite with  the  Northern  people.  A  Southern  Senator  at  the  time  of 
secession,  he  stood  manfully  by  the  Union.  As  Military  Governor  of 
Tennessee  afterward  he  deepened  this  favorable  impression  by  his 
boldness  and  vigor.  At  the  time  he  was  successfully  rehabilitating 
his  State  and  restoring  it  to  the  Union.  His  humble  origin,  his  early 
struggles  and  energy,  his  indebtedness  to  his  wife  for  a  rudi- 
mentary education,  his  rise  from  a  village  alderman  to  a  Senator 
in  Congress  from  his  State,  were  facts  that  made  him  a  suitable  mate 
for  the  rail -splitter  of  Illinois.  His  assessment  of  rich  secessionists 
in  1862  to  support  the  destitute  families  of  Confederate  soldiers,  his 
vigorous  treatment  of  rebel  sympathizers  in  1862-3,  and  his  ready  ac- 


DANIEL    S.    DICKINSON. 


THE  THIRD   REPUBLICAN    CONVENTION.  143 

ceptauce  of  the  emancipation  policy,  and  his  efforts  to  make  Tennessee 
a  free  State  added  to  his  popularity.  The  selection  was  a  good  one  so 
far  as  men  could  see — even  those  wno  were  not  favorable  to  his  nomi- 
nation could  urge  no  strong  objections  against  it.  He  certainly  added 
to  the  strength  of  the  ticket  in  the  campaign  of  1864. 

Mr.  Hamliu's  defeat  wrought  him  no  real  injury.  The  reasons  for 
Johnson's  nomination  were  so  specious,  and  it  was  accepted  so  heart- 
ily by  the  country,  that  Hamlin  and  his  friends  felt  compelled  to 
smother  their  disappointment  with  the  best  grace  they  were  able  to 
command.  Hanilin  believed  that  Lincoln  was  favorable  to  his  nomi- 
nation for  a  quarter  of  a  century.  "  I  was  really  sorry  to  be  dis- 
abused/' he  wrote  in  1889. 

The  Democratic  National  Convention  did  not  meet  until  the  29th  of 
August,  when  it  assembled  in  Chicago,  and  nominated  General  George 
B.  McClellan  for  President,  and  George  H.  Pendleton,  of  Ohio,  for 
Vice-President.  It  contained  many  representative  Democrats  of  that 
and  a  later  period,  including  such  men  as  Josiah  G.  Abbott  and 
George  Lunt,  of  Massachusetts;  William  W.  Eaton,  of  Connecticut; 
Dean  Richmond,  Horatio  Seymour,  Sanford  E.  Church,  Washington 
Hunt,  and  Samuel  J.  Tilden,  of  New  York;  William  Bigler  and  Will- 
iam A.  Wallace,  of  Pennsylvania;  William  Allen,  Allen  G.  Thurman, 
and  Clement  L.  Vallandigham,  of  Ohio,  and  Joseph  E.  McDonald,  of 
Indiana.  It  was  a  Peace  Convention,  and  its  utterances  properly  be- 
long to  the  campaigns  then  in  progress — those  of  Grant  and  Sherman 
in  the  South,  and  that  of  Lincoln  and  Johnson  in  the  North. 


V. 

THE  LINCOLN  AND  JOHNSON  CAMPAIGN. 

Gloomy  Outlook  when  the  Canvass  Opened — Democratic  Hopes — 
Sentiments  of  Belmont,  Bigler,  and  Seymour  at  Chicago — The 
Jewett-Greeley  Peace  Fiasco — Object  of  the  Negotiations — Resig- 
nation of  Secretary  Chase — Democratic  Conspiracies — Knights 
of  the  Golden  Circle — Objections  Made  to  McClellan's  Nomina- 
tion— Lincoln  and  McClellan — McClellan's  Body-guard — Mc- 
Clellan's Dismissal — The  Soldier  Candidate  of  the  Peace  Party- 
Turn  in  the  Tide — Union  Victories — Election  Responses  to  the 
War  Bulletins — Montgomery  Blair — His  Unpopularity — The 
Pressure  for  His  Removal — Lincoln's  Intervention  Demanded 
by  the  Politicians — Vallandigham  Insists  on  the  Chicago  Plat- 
form— Results  of  the  Elections. 


HE  Presidential  campaign  of  1864  was  so  intimately  associ- 
ated with  the  progress  of  the  war  that  Republican  hopes 
rose  and  fell  with  the  fortunes  and  misfortunes  of  the 
armies  under  Grant  and  Sherman.  When  the  Baltimore 
Convention  adjourned  the  full  effects  of  the  defeat  at  Cold  Harbor 
vere  not  felt.  It  was  confidently  expected  that  the  re-election  of 
Lincoln  and  the  close  of  the  war  would  be  celebrated  at  the  same 
time.  The  reverse  and  the  certainty  that  much  hard  fighting  was  still 
before  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  before  Lee  could  be  crushed  were 
rude  shocks  to  this  optimistic  feeling.  A  period  of  deep  gloom  fol- 
lowed one  of  great  exaltation.  Many  Republicans  even  joined 
in  the  denunciation  of  Grant.  It  is  possible  that  the  battle  ought  not 
to  have  been  fought  at  all;  but  this  claim  rests  only  on  the  assump- 
tion that  no  general  should  fight  and  fail.  It  is  unnecessary  to  discuss 
the  failure  here,  but  the  magnitude  of  our  losses,  the  demoralizing 
effect  of  the  disaster  upon  the  morale  of  the  ariity,  the  utter  hopeless- 
ness of  crushing  Lee  north  of  the  James,  appalled  the  country.  The 
luckless  events  that  followed  it — Sheridan's  failure  to  unite  with 
Hunter  in  Lee's  rear,  Hunter's  failure  to  capture  Lynchburg  and  his 
disastrous  retreat,  Early's  swoop  across  the  Potomac,  the  defeat  of 
Wallace  at  the  Monocacy,  the  demonstrations  on  the  outskirts  of 
Washington  and  the  suburbs  of  Baltimore,  the  deadly  mine  ex- 
plosion at  Petersburg,  and  the  burning  of  Chambersburg — were  not 
encouraging  concomitants  for  an  administration  seeking  a  popular 


THE   LINCOLN   AND  JOHNSON    CAMPAIGN. 


145 


indorsement.  In  the  army  in  the  South  and  Southwest  the  prospect 
was  almost  equally  dark  and  gloomy.  Sturgis  was  beaten  by  Forrest 
at  Guntown,  Sherman  was  repulsed  at  Kenesawr.  All  this  can  be 
read  with  critical  dispassion  now — it  can  even  be  read  with  a  feeling 
of  pride  that  through  these  manifold  dangers  and  disasters  came  the 
final  triumph — but  the  war  bulletins  that  told  the  achievements  of  a 
triumphant  enemy  with  all  possible  reserve  were  not  fruitful  cam- 
paign documents  for  the  responsible  party  in  the  approaching  Presi- 
dential election.  Even  Lincoln  began  to  fear  the  portentous  mean- 
ing of  a  cloud  that  seemed  to  have  no  silver  lining. 

While  the  Republicans  were  discouraged  by  the  series  of  disasters 
that  followed  fast  and  fol- 
lowed faster  from  the  early 
June  days  of  Cold  Harbor  far 
into  the  midsummer,  the  Peaco 
Democracy  took  heart  of  hope. 
The  meeting  of  the  Democratic- 
National  Convention  had  been 
originally  fixed  for  the  4th  of 
July.  It  wras  postponed  until 
the  closing  days  of  August,  in 
order  to  take  advantage  of  the 
later  phases  of  popular  discon- 
tent, owing  to  an  unfavorable 
course  of  military  events.  The 
wished-for  reverses  exceeded 
even  the  wildest  Democratic 
hopes.  In  their  joy  the  leaders 
lost  all  prudence,  and  went  to 
the  extreme  of  unpatriotic  par- 
tisanship. With  a  wildness  of 

rhetoric  that  was  expressive  of  the  violence  of  their  passions,  the  war 
and  the  war  party  were  arraigned  by  the  Convention  orators.  "  Four 
years  of  misrule,"  said  August  Belmont,  Chairman  of  the  National 
Committee,  in  opening  the  proceedings,  "  by  a  sectional,  fanatical,  and 
corrupt  party  have  brought  our  country  to  the  very  verge  of  ruin.  .  .  . 
The  past  and  the  present  are  sufficient  warning  of  the  disastrous  con- 
sequences which  would  befall  us  if  Mr.  Lincoln's  re-election  should  be 
made  possible  by  our  want  of  patriotism  and  unity."  Our  whole 
political  and  social  system  was  to  go  to  everlasting  smash,  amid 
bloodshed  and  anarchy,  in  that  event.  The  notes  of  the  raven  were 
repeated  by  Governor  Bigler,  of  Pennsylvania,  the  temporary  chair- 
man. But  to  Governor  Horatio  Seymour,  of  New  York,  the  permanent 


HORATIO     SEYMOUR. 


146  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

president,  was  committed  the  task  of  giving  the  keynote  to  the  Con- 
vention and  the  party.  He  was  well  adapted  to  lead  the  forces  of  re- 
action and  surrender.  He  was  able,  adroit,  and  eloquent — specious, 
subtle,  and  mischievous.  He  wras,  moreover,  the  acknowledged  leader 
of  the  Peace  Democracy — a  pre-eminence  that  he  owed  less  to  his  im- 
portant place  as  Governor  of  New  York  than  to  his  prepossessing- 
manner  and  polished  and  persuasive  speech.  It  was  his  duty  to  put 
virulent  utterances  into  apparently  temperate  but  plausible  form. 
He  performed  this  duty  with  great  skill.  He  affected  to  treat  the 
Republican  party  more  in  sorrow  than  in  anger.  "  Four  years  ago," 
he  said,  "  a  convention  met  in  this  city  when  our  country  was  peace- 
ful, prosperous,  and  united.  Its  delegates  did  not  mean  to  destroy  our 
Government,  to  overwhelm  us  with  debt,  or  to  drench  our  land  in 
blood;  but  they  were  animated  by  intolerance  and  fanaticism,  and 
blinded  by  an  ignorance  of  the  spirit  of  our  institutions,  the  character 
of  our  people,  and  the  condition  of  our  land.  They  thought  they  might 
safely  indulge  their  passions,  and  they  concluded  to  do  so.  Their  pas- 
sions have  wrought  out  their  natural  results."  To  this  man  and  those 
who  heard  him  the  championship  of  the  expansion  of  slavery  was 
not  fanaticism;  secession  and  disunion  were  not  the  indulgence  of 
passions.  It  was  the  Republican  party  that  had  gone  to  war  with  the 
South, — not  the  South  that  was  making  war  on  the  Union.  It  was 
easy  for  him  to  suggest  an  armistice  involving  surrender,  and  for 
those  to  whom  he  was  speaking  to  accept  the  suggestion.  "  The  ad- 
ministration," he  said,  "  will  not  let  the  shedding  of  blood  cease,  even 
for  a  little  time,  to  see  if  Christian  charity  and  the  wisdom  of  states- 
manship may  not  work  out  a  method  to  save  our  country.  Nay,  more, 
they  will  not  listen  to  a  proposal  of  peace  which  does  not  offer  that 
which  this  Government  has  no  right  to  ask."  After  three  years  of 
war,  slavery,  which  had  caused  it,  was  still  as  sacred  in  the  eyes  of 
Horatio  Seymour  as  before  the  war  began.  The  address  closed  with  a 
threat.  "  But  for  us,"  said  the  spokesman  of  the  Peace  Democracy, 
"  we  are  resolved  that  the  party  which  has  made  the  history  of  our 
country  since  its  advent  to  power  seem  like  some  unnatural  and  ter- 
rible dream  shall  be  overthrown.  We  have  forborne  much  because 
those  who  are  now  charged  with  the  conduct  of  public  affairs  know 
but  little  about  the  principles  of  our  Government."  The  platform  to 
which  these  sentiments  were  the  prelude  was  in  its  vital  part  a  dec- 
laration that  the  war  was  a  failure.  It  demanded  a  cessation  of  hos- 
tilities, while  the  rebels  had  no  thought  of  laying  down  their  arms, 
and  a  Peace  Convention  to  arrange  terms  of  surrender  to  a  triumphant 
enemy.  On  such  a  platform  George  B.  McClellan,  a  Union  soldier,  was 
nominated  by  the  party  of  surrender.  He  accepted,  and  for  a  time 
even  Abraham  Lincoln  regarded  his  election  as  a  possibility. 


THE   LINCOLN   AND  JOHNSON    CAMPAIGN.  147 

An  episode  of  the  campaign,  between  the  War  Convention  at  Balti- 
more and  the  Peace  Convention  at.  Chicago,  was  the  peace  mission, 
so  obtrusively  proposed  and  so  reluctantly  undertaken  by  Horace 
Greeley.  It  originated  with  a  grotesque  adventurer  who  called  him- 
self William  Cornell  Jewett,  of  Colorado.  JewTett  was  a  type  of  the 
busybody  who  occupied  a  position  midway  between  such  intermed- 
dlers  as  the  famous  Chevalier  Wykoff  and  the  mischievous  Joseph 
Howard,  Jr.  Wykoff,  in  his  day,  was  a  self-appointed  intermediary 
for  royal  and  imperial  potentates.  Howard  was  the  author  of  a  forged 
proclamation,  imputed  to  President  Lincoln,  calling  out  a  new  levy 
of  troops  on  the  assumed  basis  that  the  war  was  proving  a  failure. 
Jewett  was  neither  so  adroit  as  Wykoff  nor  so  reckless  as  Howard  in 
the  pursuit  of  notoriety,  but  he  managed  to  attract  a  great  deal  of  at- 
tention to  himself.  His  catspaw  was 
(ireeley.  Jewett  wrote  letters  of 
advice  to  Jefferson  Davis  and  Abra- 
ham Lincoln,  that  were  never  no- 
ticed by  their  recipients,  but  ap- 
peared in  the  New  York  Herald, 
with  comments  replete  with  the 
grim  humor  of  James  Gordon  Ben- 
nett, the  elder.  Greeley  took  the 
adviser  of  the  two  American  Presi- 
dents more  seriously.  In  July, 
1864,  Jewett  wrote  to  Greeley  from 
Niagara  Falls,  that  he  had  just  seen 
George  N.  Sanders,  of  Kentucky,  on 
the  Canada  side,  and  that  he  was  GEORGE  tf.  SANDERS. 

authorized  to  say  that  two  ambas- 
sadors from  "  Davis  &  Co."  were  there  "  with  full  and  complete 
powrers  to  treat  for  peace."  "  Mr.  Sanders  requests,"  Jewett  wrote,. 
"  that  you  come  on  immediately  to  me  at  Cataract  House  to  have  a 
private  interview;  or  if  you  will  send  the  President's  protection  for 
him  and  two  friends  they  will  come  and  meet  you."  Greeley  was 
greatly  impressed  by  this  communication.  He  sent  the  letter,  with  a 
telegram  from  Jewett  that  followed  it,  to  the  President,  inclosed  in  a 
letter  of  his  own,  in  which  he  spoke  of  his  queer  correspondent  as  "  our 
irrepressible  friend,  Colorado  Jewett,"  and  urged  that  the  application 
be  responded  to.  This  letter  from  Greeley  to  Lincoln  was  an  extraor- 
dinary recital  from  a  sane  man  to  the  President  of  the  United  States. 
"  I  venture  to  remind  you  that  our  bleeding,  bankrupt,  almost  dying 
country  also  longs  for  peace,"  he  said,  after  insisting  upon  the  Con- 
federate wish  for  a  settlement;  "  shudders  at  the  prospect  of  fresh  con- 


148  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

scriptions,  of  further  wholesale  devastations,  and  of  new  rivers  of 
human  blood."  He  declared  that  there  was  "  a  widespread  conviction 
that  the  Government  and  its  prominent  supporters  are  not  anxious 
for  peace,  and  do  not  improve  proffered  opportunities  to  achieve  it "; 
rebuked  the  President  for  not  receiving  the  Stephens  embassy,  and 
disapproved  the  warlike  tone  of  the  Baltimore  platform.  He  wanted 
an  adjustment  in  time  to  affect  the  North  Carolina  election,  but  failed 
to  understand  that  the  proposed  negotiation  was  a  Confederate 
scheme  to  affect  the  Presidential  elections.  Mr.  Greeley  himself  made 
suggestions  of  the  basis  of  a  settlement — (1)  the  Union  restored  and 
declared  perpetual;  (2)  slavery  utterly  and  forever  abolished;  (3)  com- 
plete amnesty;  (4)  the  payment  of  f 400,000,000  to  the  Slave 
States  as  compensation  for  their  slaves;  (5)  the  Slave  States 
to  be  represented  in  Congress  in  proportion  to  their  total 
population;  and  (<>)  a  national  convention.  To  Mr.  Greeley's 
surprise  Mr.  Lincoln  made  no  objection  to  his  terms,  and  asked 
him  to  meet  the  commissioners  at  Niagara  and  conduct  them  to 
Washington.  Greeley  was  thus  doubly  entrapped;  he  accepted  his 
mission  with  reluctance,  and  conducted  it  without  skill.  There  was, 
in  fact,  no  basis  for  negotiations  on  the  part  of  the  alleged  commis- 
sioners that  could  be  at  all  acceptable,  and  Mr.  Greeley  and  the 
rebels  both  complained  afterward  because  the  President  made  Gree- 
ley's conditions  the  conditions  of  the  proposed  negotiations.  "  There 
was  a  very  widespread  impression,"  he  says  in  the  "  American  Con- 
flict," written  after  the  war,  "  that  the  overture  of  the  Confederates 
had  not  been  met  in  the  manner  best  calculated  to  strengthen  the 
national  cause  and  invigorate  the  arm  of  its  supporters.  In  other 
words,  it  was  felt — since  the  overture  originated  with  them — they 
should  have  been  allowed  to  make  their  own  proposition,  and  not 
required  in  effect  to  make  one  dictated  from  our  side,  however  in- 
herently reasonable."  Mr.  Greeley  joined  in  attributing  the  failure 
of  these  insincere  negotiations  to  the  President's  refusal  to  receive 
the  Rebel  Commissioners  "  unconditionally,"  and  the  outcome  of  the 
affair  was  what  was  originally  intended — a  not  ineffective  campaign 
document  for  the  Peace  Democracy. 

After  the  failure  of  Greeley's  peace  mission  there  was  a  discussion 
between  the  President  and  Greeley  in  regard  to  the  correspondence. 
The  President  invited  Mr.  Greeley  to  Washington,  but  Greeley  declined 
to  go  on  the  ground  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was  surrounded  by  his  "  bitter- 
est personal  enemies."  "  I  will  gladly  go,"  he  said,  "  whenever  I  feel 
a  hope  that  their  influence  has  waned."  This  could  only  have  meant 
that  Greeley  wanted  a  promise  from  the  President  that  Secretary 
Seward  should  be  dismissed  from  the  Cabinet.  The  acceptance  of  Mr. 


THE   LINCOLN   AND  JOHNSON    CAMPAIGN.  149 

Chase's  resignation  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  on  the  last  day  of 
June,  because  Mr.  Chase  insisted  on  nominating  a  candidate  of  his 
own  as  Assistant  Treasurer  at  New  York,  was  one  of  Greeley's  griev- 
ances. The  President  sustained  the  party  view  in  the  matter,  which 
was  the  view  of  Seward's  friends.  Greeley  regarded  Chase's  resigna- 
tion as  a  shock  to  public  confidence  in  the  administration,  but  it 
proved  nothing  of  the  kind,  for  even  Mr.  Chase,  true  to  his  conserva- 
tive instincts,  supported  Mr.  Lincoln  in  the  ensuing  campaign  as 
heartily  as  it  was  his  nature  to  support  anybody. 

No  one  believes  that  Horace  Greeley  was  knowingly  disloyal  in 
becoming  the  instrument  of  the  conspiracy,  but  he  was  in  line  with 
many  of  the  conspirators,  who  were  disloyal,  in  some  of  his  utterances 
and  demands.  In  one  of  his  letters  to  Lincoln  he  went  to  the  extent 
of  asking  for  an  armistice  for  a  year  and  a  convention  even  after  his 
abortive  negotiations.  The  conspirators  who  wrere  doing  the  work 
of  the  Southern  Confederacy  in  the  North  scarcely  went  further  in 
principle,  although  they  were  willing  to  go  to  far  greater  lengths  in 
practice.  It  was  a  time  when  conspirators  and  conspiracies  were  rife 
in  all  the  border  slave  and  free  States.  They  were  known  by  various 
names,  but  the  "  Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle  "  was  the  one  most 
commonly  applied  to  them.  When  one  name  was  discovered  they 
adopted  another,  calling  themselves  at  different  times  the  "  Order  of 
American  Knights,"  the  "  Order  of  the  Star,"  and  the  "  Sons  of  Lib- 
erty." These  knights  were  in  the  main  the  lower  class  of  Democrats, 
for  whom  furtive  treason  in  secret  lodges  had  a  great  attraction— 
these  "  Sons  of  Liberty  "  were  ignorant  champions  of  slavery,  led  by 
rebel  brigadiers  and  major-generals  in  disguise.  The  organization  of 
the  lodges  was  military.  The  State  lodges  were  commanded  by  major- 
generals,  the  Congress  districts  by  brigadiers,  the  counties  by  col- 
onels, and  the  townships  by  captains.  They  drilled  in  secret,  pur- 
chased arms,  and  prepared  for  war.  Judge  Advocate  General  Holt, 
in  March,  1804,  placed  their  number  at  340,000.  This  was  probably 
exaggerated  at  the  time,  but  it  had  reached  fullv  500,000  when  Gen- 

~  ™ 

eral  McClellan  was  nominated  at  Chicago.  If  the  dark  cloud  had  not 
lifted  almost  immediately  after  the  work  of  the  Peace  Convention  was 
ended,  it  is  not  unlikely  that  these  knights  of  slavery  would  have 
marched  as  openly  in  the  campaign  processions  of  1864  as  the  "  Wide- 
A wakes  "  marched  in  the  torchlight  parades  in  the  campaign  of  1860. 
The  nomination  of  General  McClellan  was  not  made  without  a 
stormy  protest  in  a  convention  of  peacemakers.  McClellan  had  ar- 
rested the  Maryland  Legislature  when  it  was  on  the  point  of  passing 
an  ordinance  of  secession.  A  Maryland  delegate  stood  up  in  the  Con- 
vention and  boldly  proclaimed  him  "  a  tyrant."  "  All  the  charges  of 


150 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 


usurpation  and  tyranny  that  can  be  brought  against  Lincoln  and 
Butler/'  exclaimed  the  speaker,  "  can  be  made  and  substantiated 
against  McClellau.  He  is  the  assassin  of  State  rights,  the  usurper  of 
liberty,  and  if  nominated  will  be  beaten  everywhere  as  he  was  at  An- 
tietam."  General  Morgan,  of  Ohio,  defended  McClellan,  but  Alexan- 
der Long,  an  extremist  of  the  Vallandigham  type,  joined  in  the  de- 
nunciation of  the  candidate.  These  men  wanted  a  candidate  whose 
tfcts  would  square  with  their  principles,  but  the  majority  of  the  Con- 
vention felt  that  McClellan  was  a  good  enough  peace  candidate  for 
them.  On  a  platform  less  vehement  in  declaring  the  war,  in  which  he 
had  been  the  idol  of  the  Democratic  soldiers  in  the  Army  of  the 

Potomac,  a  failure,  he  would 
have  been  an  ideal  candidate. 
His  military  failures  had  al- 
ways been  condoned  by  the 
Democrats  and  by  niamT  of 
the  Republicans.  The  admin- 
istration at  Washington  \vas 
charged  writh  the  responsi- 
bility of  his  defeat  before 
Richmond.  The  drawn  bat- 
tle at  Antietam  was  magni- 
fied into  a  great  victory  by 
his  friends  and  admirers. 
The  country  knew  little  of  his 
real  character — his  vanity 
that  made  him  disobedient 
and  even  disrespectful,  his 
ambition  that  prompted  him 
to  look  forward  to  a  dictator- 
ship, his  inertia  that  saved 
the  lives  of  his  men  by  inaction  and  sacrificed  them  through  disease 
or  defeat.  After  the  battle  at  Antietam  President  Lincoln  visited 
him  in  the  cam])  on  the  Potomac,  and  vainly  urged  him  to  cross 
the  river  and  give  the  enemy  battle.  Leaving  his  tent  early  in  the 
morning  with  a  friend,  Lincoln  went  to  an  eminence  that  over- 
looked the  vast  encampment.  It  was  a  splendid  vision  of  all  the 
pomp  and  circumstance  of  glorious  war.  "  Do  you  know  what  that 
is?  "  he  asked,  pointing  to  the  vast  host  that  was  encamped  below 
them.  "  It  is  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,"  was  the  answer.  "  That  is 
a  mistake,"  Lincoln  said;  "  it  is  only  McClellan's  body-guard.''  While 
McClellan  lay  there,  Stuart  with  his  cavalry  swept  completely  round 
the  proud  army,  fresh  from  the  vaunted  victory  at  Antietam,  sacking 


GEN.    GKORGK    B.    McCLKLLAN. 


THE   LINCOLN   AND   JOHNSON    CAMPAIGN.  151 

the  towns  and  villages  on  his  inarch  without  losing  a  inaii.  At  this 
time  the  President  was  chafing  at  McClellan's  delay  and  McClellan 
was  chafing  at  the  course  of  the  President.  u  The  President's  late 
proclamation,"  he  wrote — "  the  continuation  of  Stanton  and  Halleck 
in  office,  render  it  almost  impossible  for  me  to  retain  my  commission 
and  self-respect  at  the  same  time."  But  he  neither  resigned  nor  at- 
tacked the  enemy,  and  the  President  removed  him.  He  afterward 
took  credit  to  himself  for  not  heading  a  mutiny  of  his  troops  because 
of  his  removal.  u  Many  were  in  favor  of  my  refusing  to  obe}7  the  or- 
der," he  wrote,  "  and  of  marching  upon  Washington  to  take  possession 
of  the  Government.'"  Without  the  desperate  courage  to  heed  these 
counsels,  he  seems  to  have  heard  them  without  rebuke.  His  removal 
caused  a  storm  of  indignation  in  the  peace  party,  which  a  day  or  twTo 
before  had  elected  Horatio  Seymour  Governor  of  New  York.  His  dis- 
missal, Lord  Lyons  wrote  to  his  Government,  caused  u  an  irritation 
not  unmixed  with  consternation  and  despondency.  The  General  has 
been  regarded  as  the  representative  of  conservative  principles  in  the 
army.  Support  of  him  has  been  made  one  of  the  articles  of  the  Con- 
servative electoral  platform." 

This  General,  removed  in  18(52,  and  living  in  enforced  retirement  in 
New  Jersey  in  1864,  was  the  logical  candidate  of  the  Peace  Democracy 
for  President,  as  Mr.  Lincoln's  successor.  The  time  seemed  opportune 
for  the  party  and  the  candidate.  General  Grant  had  done,  in  the 
summer  of  1864,  what  McClellan  was  removed  for  not  doing  in  the 
autumn  of  1862.  The  result,  as  it  appeared  to  the  Peace  Convention 
at  Chicago,  was  "  four  years  of  failure  to  restore  the  Union  by  the 
experiment  of  war."  If  these  conditions  had  lasted  long  enough  to 
allow'  McClellan  time  to  have  written  his  letter  of  acceptance  without 
a  sign  of  the  coming  victories,  it  is  probable  he  would  have  placed 
himself  squarely  on  the  platform  of  his  party  in  defiance  of  the 
aroused  sentiment  of  the  country.  That  would  not  have  been  incom- 
patible with  his  career,  for  a  soldier  who  never  saw  his  own  army 
fight  a  battle  was  well  fitted  to  lead  a  party  that  declared  that  there 
should  be  no  more  battles  for  the  Union. 

"  With  reverses  in  the  field  the  cause  is  doubtful  at  the  polls,"  said 
Abraham  Lincoln;  u  with  victory  in  the  field,  the  election  will  take 
care  of  itself."  While  the  Peace  Convention  was  declaring  the  war  a 
failure  the  news  of  the  capture  of  Fort  Morgan  came  as  a  protest  to 
the  betrayal  of  the  Union,  Scarcely  had  it  named  its  candidate  when 
the  inspiriting  intelligence  was  received  that  Sherman  was  in  At- 
lanta. "  Sherman  and  Farragut."  Seward  said  in  a  speech  at  Auburn, 
"  have  knocked  the  planks  out  of  the  Chicago  platform."  The  dele- 
gates to  the  Convention  had  scarcely  got  back  to  their  homes,  to  ex- 


152 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 


ADMIRAL    1>.    G.    FARRAGUT. 


plain  to  disgusted  Democrats  why  they  had  accepted  a  policy  from 

the  wild  and  reckless  Vallandigham,  when  Sheridan  sent  the  forces 

of  the  fierce  and  arrogant  Early 

scurrying   from   Winchester  and 

Fisher's  Hill.     Cedar  Creek  was 

quickly  to  follow.     With  Farra- 

gut  sweeping  Mobile  Bay,  with 

Sherman  in  Atlanta  preparing  to 

march    through     Georgia,     with 

Sheridan  avenging  the  swoop  of 

Early  and  the  torch  of  McCaus- 

land  in  the  Shenandoah  Valley, 

and  with  Grant  holding  Lee  fast 

as  in  a  vise  at  Petersburg  and 

pounding  the  main   hope  of  the 

Confederacy  day  after  day,  the 

peace    party    and    its   candidate 

could  not  withstand  the  ridicule 

and  obloquy  hurled  at  them  by  a 

people  aflame   with   enthusiasm. 

It  was  in  the  first  flush  of  these 

victories  that  General  McClellan  set  himself  to  the  task  of  writing  his 

letter  of  acceptance.  His  situation  was  an  awkward  one.  He  at- 
tempted a  cautious  and  guarded  dis- 
sent from  the  offensive  and  obnox- 
ious declarations  of  the  nominating 
body,  but  it  was  too  late  for  mod- 
eration to  avail  him  with  the  coun- 
try. The  bulletins  from  the  battle- 
field were  echoed  back  from  the 
polls  in  the  September  and  October 
elections.  Vermont  and  Maine 
answered  back  to  Atlanta  and  Mo- 
bile; Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  and  Indi- 
ana were  the  responses  to  Winches- 
ter, Fisher's  Hill,  and  Cedar  Creek. 
The  campaign  that  had  begun  in 
darkness  and  gloom  closed  with  a 
sunburst. 

At  the  time  when   Lincoln   was 
most  despondent  over  the  chances 

of  his  re-election,  the  greatest  pressure  was  brought  to  bear  upon  him 

for  the  removal  of  Postmaster-General  Blair,  in  compliance  with  the 


MONTGOMKRY    BLAIR. 


THE    LINCOLN   AND  JOHNSON    CAMPAIGN.  153 

demand  of  the  Baltimore  platform.    The  Cabinet  was  never  a  happy 
family,  and  Montgomery  Blair  was  one  of  its  most  discordant  ele- 
ments.   His  sharp  tongue  wagged  incessantly,  and  sharp  words,  like 
chickens,  come  home  to  roost.    None  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  advisers  made  so 
many  enemies,  both  in  and  out  of  the  Cabinet.    His  loyalty  to  Lincoln 
\vas  at  least  equal  to  that  of  any  of  his  associates,  and  his  support  of 
the  Emancipation  Proclamation  was  unequivocal  when  others  were 
less  hearty,  but  he  lost  caste  with  the  radical  anti-slavery  men  at  a 
very  early  period.    He  was,  as  he  wrote  to  Fremont,  too  obstreperous. 
The  quarrel  of  the  Blairs  with  Fremont  was  the  beginning  of  the 
antagonisms  that  finally  involved  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  compelled  him  to 
ask  for  the  Postmaster-General's  resignation.    These  antagonisms  had 
a  seriousness  then  that  seems  like  silliness  now.    The  Union  League  of 
Philadelphia,  in  1863,  made  the  members  of  the  Cabinet  honorary 
members  of  the  club,  but  omitted  Montgomery  Blair's  name  from  the 
list.     At  that  time  he  opposed  Henry  Winter  Davis  in  Maryland, 
which  he  had  a  right  to  do;  but  in  doing  it  he  spoke  of  his  Republican 
assailants  with  an  acrimony  that  directed  their  anger  towrard  Lincoln, 
who  was  blameless.     The  Blair  feud  in  Missouri  not  only  deprived 
Lincoln  of  the  vote  of  the  Missouri  delegation  in  the  Baltimore  Con- 
vention, but  it  was  the  occasion  of  the  harmony  counsels  in  the  Balti- 
more platform.     After  the  Convention,  and  especially  after  Chase's 
resignation,  Lincoln  was  harassed  by  the  complaints  of  Blair's  en- 
emies.    His  relations  with  Seward  and  Stanton  were  as  strained  as 
had  been  his  relations  with  Chase.    To  the  old  enmities  he  added  new- 
ones.    Smarting  under  the  destruction  of  his  property  in  the  suburbs 
of  Washington,  when  Early  was  conducting  a  political  campaign  in 
conjunction  with  the  Democracy,  he  talked  recklessly  of  the  laxity  or 
poltroonery  of  the  defenders  of  the  capital.     This  angered  General 
Halleck,  who  wrote  to  the  Secretary  of  War  calling  Blair  a  slanderer, 
and  asking  "  whether  such  wholesale  denouncement  and  accusation 
by  a  member  of  the  Cabinet  receives  the  sanction  and  approbation  of 
the  President  of  the  United  States."    Stanton  sent  the  letter  to  the 
President  without  comment.     "  Whether  the  remarks  were  really 
made  I  do  not  know,"  Lincoln  said  in  response,  "  nor  do  I  suppose 
such  knowledge  is  necessary  to  a  correct  response.    If  they  were  made, 
I    do    not    approve   them;    and    yet,    under    the    circumstances,    I 
would  not  dismiss  a  member  of  the  Cabinet  therefor.    I  do  not  con- 
sider what  may  have  been  hastily  said  in  a  moment  of  texation  at  so 
severe  a  loss  is  sufficient  ground  for  so  grave  a  step.     Besides  this, 
truth  is  generally  the  best  vindication  against  slander.     I  propose 
continuing  to  be  myself  the  judge  as  to  when  a  member  of  the  Cabinet 
shall  be  dismissed."    With  each  day  the  pressure  upon  the  President 


154  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

increased  until  September,  when  missives  aimed  at  Blair  became  an 
avalanche.  ''  Blair  every  one  hates,"  Henry  Wilson  wrote.  "  Tens 
of  thousands  of  men  will  be  lost  to  you  or  will  give  a  reluctant  vote  on 
account  of  the  Blairs."  At  last  Lincoln  yielded,  but  not  until  the 
political  skies  had  brightened  and  success  was  assured.  Blair  ac- 
cepted his  dismissal  manfully,  and  Lincoln  had  no  more  earnest  sup- 
porter in  the  campaign. 

The  Democratic  position  rendered  Fremont's  candidature  unten- 
able, and  he  withdrew.  Lincoln  held  aloof  from  the  campaign,  but 
Seward  made  a  speech  to  his  to-wusmen  at  Auburn  before  the  peace 
delegates  from  Chicago  got  back  to  their  homes  to  tell  the  people  how 
boldly  they  had  proclaimed  the  war  a  failure.  It  was  one  of  the  con- 
ditions of  the  war  canvass,  however,  that  the  President  was  called 
upon  to  intervene  to  compose  disagreements  among  his  supporters, 
or  to  pass  upon  the  protests  of  his  opponents.  One  of  the  most  im- 
portant of  the  Democratic  objections  came  from  Tennessee.  Governor 
Johnson  issued  a  proclamation  defining  the  manner  in  which  the 
Presidential  vote  should  be  taken,  and  prescribing  the  oath.  The 
Democratic  candidates  for  electors  felt  aggrieved  at  the  requirements, 
and  appealed  from  Johnson  to  Lincoln.  The  President  refused  to 
intervene,  and  the  McClellan  ticket  was  withdrawn.  From  the  Con- 
gress districts  came  complaints,  even  from  Republican  candidates, 
of  Republican  officials,  especially  the  postmasters.  Isaac  N.  Arnold 
complained  of  the  hostility  of  the  postmaster  at  Chicago.  William  I). 
Kelley  accused  the  postmaster  at  Philadelphia  of  interference.  Fred- 
erick A.  Conkling  incurred  the  opposition  of  the  Custom  House  offi- 
cials in  New  York  city.  Roscoe  Conkling  was  opposed  by  some  of  Mr. 
Seward's  friends  in  the  Utica  district.  When  the  distractions  of 
faction  were  quieted  everywhere  else,  they  were  still  active  in  Mis- 
souri. In  all  these  cases  Mr.  Lincoln  did  what  he  could  to  compose 
the  differences,  generally  with  success,  so  that  the  party  was  reunited 
in  the  Presidential  contest,  even  in  a  State  where  some  of  the  politi- 
cians were  inclined  to  oppose  Lincoln  because  the  Blairs  continued  to 
support  him. 

It  was,  of  course,  impossible  to  conduct  McClellan's  campaign  in 
the  key  in  which  it  was  set.  The  men  who  had  given  its  tone  and 
character  to  the  Convention  that  nominated  him  were  angered  at  his 
attempt  to  weaken  the  force  of  its  declarations.  "  The  Chicago  Con 
vention,"  Mr.  Vallandigham  said,  after  the  letter  of  acceptance  was 
made  public,  "  enunciated  its  platform  and  principles  by  authority 
and  was  binding  on  every  Democrat,  and  by  them  the  Democratic 
administration  must  and  should  be  governed.  It  was  the  only  au- 
thorized exposition  of  the  Democratic  creed,  and  he  repudiated  all 


THE    LINCOLN    AND   JOHNSON    CAMPAIGN.  155 

others."  That  this  would  have  been  the  policy  of  the  administration 
in  case  of  success  the  country  did  not  doubt.  McClellan  was  practi- 
cally held  to  the  platform  throughout  the  campaign,  and  the  discus- 
sions of  his  military  genius  and  his  wrongs  proved  ineffective.  The 
mad  schemes  of  Jacob  Thompson  and  other  rebel  emissaries  in  Can- 
ada only  added  to  the  hopelessness  of  the  efforts  in  his  behalf.  The 
October  elections  dissipated  the  last  lingering  hope  of  Democratic 
success.  Pennsylvania  changed  her  representation  in  Congress  from 
12  to  12,  to  15  Republicans  and  9  Democrats.  Indiana  elected  Gov- 
ernor Morton  by  a  majority  of  30,000.  Ohio,  which  had  sent  14  Demo- 
crats to  5  Republicans  to  Congress  in  1862,  now  chose  IT  Republicans 
to  2  Democrats,  and  the  Union  ticket  had  a  majority  of  54,754.  Mary- 
laud  placed  herself  in  line  with  the  Free  States  by  adopting  the  new 
Constitution  abolishing  slavery.  Lincoln's  election  being  thus  as- 
sured, the  interest  centered  in  the  determination  to  defeat  Governor 
Seymour  in  New  York.  It  was  a  campaign  for  the  vindication  of  the 
President  against  the  aspersions  of  Mr.  Seymour  in  the  Chicago  Con- 
vention. Seymour  was  beaten.  •  McClellan  carried  only  three  States- 
New  Jersey,  Delaware,  and  Kentucky.  Lincoln  carried  all  the  others, 
receiving  212  electoral  votes  to  21  for  McClellan.  Lincoln's  popular 
majority  was  411,428;  of  the  arm}-  vote  he  received  119,754  to  34,291 
for  McClellan — over  3  to  1.  The  Republican  representation  in  Con- 
gress was  increased  from  10G  to  143,  and  the  Democrats  were  reduced 
from  77  to  41  on  the  face  of  the  returns. 

The  Union  was  saved.  The  doom  of  slavery  was  sealed.  It  only 
remained  for  the  Republican  party  to  end  a  war,  fast  nearing  its  close, 
and  to  begin  the  work  of  Reconstruction. 


DOCUMENTARY  HISTORY  OF  THE  EPOCH. 

REPUBLICAN  PLATFORM  OF  1864. 

1.  Resolved,  That  it  is  the  highest  duty  of  every  American  citizen 
to  maintain  against  all  their  enemies  the  integrit}^  of  the  Union,  and 
the  permanent  authority  of  the  Constitution  and  laws  of  the  United 
States;  and  that,  laying  aside  all  differences  of  political  opinion,  we 
pledge  ourselves  as  Union  men,  animated  by  a  common  sentiment, 
and  aiming  at  a  common  object,  to  do  everything  in  our  power  to  aid 
the  Government  in  quelling  by  force  of  arms  the  rebellion  now  raging 
against  its  authority,  and  in  bringing  to  the  punishment  due  to  their 
crimes  the  rebels  and  traitors  arrayed  against  it. 

2.  Resolved,  That  we  approve  the  determination  of  the  Government 
of  the  United  States  not  to  compromise  with  rebels,  or  to  offer  them 
any  terms  of  peace,  except  such  as  may  be  based  upon  an  uncondi- 
tional surrender  of  their  hostility  and  a  return  to  their  just  allegiance 
to  the  Constitution  and  laws  of  the  United  States;  and  that  we  call 
upon  the  Government  to  maintain  this  position,  and  to  prosecute  the 
war  with  the  utmost  possible  vigor  to  the  complete  suppression  of  the 
rebellion,  in  full  reliance  upon  the  self-sacrificing  patriotism,  the 
heroic  valor,  and  the  undying  devotion  of  the  American  people  to 
their  country  and  its  free  institutions. 

3.  Resolved,  That  as  slavery  was  the  cause,  and  now  constitutes  the 
strength  of  this  rebellion,  and  as  it  must  be,  always  and  everywhere, 
hostile  to  the  principles  of  republican  government,  justice  and  the 
national  safety  demand  its  utter  and  complete  extirpation  from  the 
soil  of  the  Republic;  and  that,  while  we  uphold  and  maintain  the  acts 
and  proclamations  by  which  the  Government,  in  its  own  defense,  has 
aimed  a  deathblow  at  this  gigantic  evil,  we  are  in  favor,  furthermore, 
of  such  amendment  to  the  Constitution,  to  be  made  by  the  people  in 
conformity  with  its  provisions,  as  shall  terminate  and  forever  pro- 
hibit the  existence  of  slavery  within  the  limits  or  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  United  States. 

4.  Rewired,  That  the  thanks  of  the  American  people  are  due  to  the 
soldiers  and  sailors  of  the  army  and  navy  who  have  periled  their 
lives  in  defense  of  their  country  and  in  vindication  of  the  honor  of  its 
flag;  that  the  nation  owes  to  them  some  permanent  recognition  of 
their  patriotism  and  their  valor,  and  ample  and  permanent  provision 
for  those  of  their  survivors  who  have  received  disabling  and  honor- 
able wounds  in  the  service  of  the  country;  and  that  the  memories  of 


DOCUMENTARY    HISTORY    OF   THE    EPOCH.  157 

those  who  have  fallen  in  its  defense  shall  be  held  in  grateful  and  ever- 
lasting remembrance. 

5.  Resolved,  That  we  approve  and  applaud  the  practical  wisdom, 
the  unselfish  patriotism,  and  the  unswerving  fidelity   with   which 
Abraham    Lincoln   has  discharged,   under  circumstances  of  unpar- 
alleled difficulty,  the  great  duties  and  responsibilities  of  the  Presiden- 
tial office;  that  we  approve  and  indorse,  as  demanded  by  the  emer- 
gency and  essential  to  the  preservation  of  the  nation  and  as  within 
the  provisions  of  the  Constitution,  the  measures  and  acts  which  he 
has  adopted  to  defend  the  nation  against  its  open  and  secret  foes; 
that  we  approve,  especially,  the  proclamation  of  emancipation  and 
the  employment  as  Union  soldiers  of  men  heretofore  held  in  slavery; 
and  that  wre  have  full  confidence  in  his  determination  to  carry  these 
and  all  other  constitutional  measures  essential  to  the  salvation  of  the 
country  into  full  and  complete  effect. 

6.  Resolved,  That  we  deem  it  essential  to  the  general  welfare  that 
harmony  should  prevail  in  the  national  councils,  and  we  regard  as 
worthy  of  public  confidence  and  official  trust  those  only  who  cordially 
indorse  the  principles  proclaimed  in  these  resolutions,  and  which 
should  characterize  the  administration  of  the  Government. 

7.  Resolved,  That  the  Government  owes  to  all  men  employed  in  its 
armies,  without  regard  to  distinction  or  color,  the  full  protection  of 
the  laws  of  war;  and  that  any  violation  of  these  laws  or  of  usages  of 
civilized  nations  in  time  of  war,  by  the  rebels  now  in  arms,  should  be 
made  the  subject  of  prompt  and  full  redress. 

8.  Resolved,  That  foreign  immigration,  which  in  the  past  has  added 
so  much  to  the  wealth,  development  of  resources,  and  increase  of 
power  to  this  nation — the  asylum  of  the  oppressed  of  all  nations- 
should  be  fostered  and  encouraged  by  a  liberal  and  just  policy. 

9.  Resolved,  That  we  are  in  favor  of  a  speedy  construction  of  the 
railroad  to  the  Pacific  coast. 

10.  Resolved,  That  the  national  faith,  pledged  for  the  redemption  of 
the  public  debt,  must  be  kept  inviolate,  and  that  for  this  purpose  we 
recommend  economy  and  rigid  responsibility  in  the  public  expendi- 
tures, and  a  vigorous  and  just  system  of  taxation;  and  that  it  is  the 
duty  of  every  loyal  State  to  sustain  the  credit  and  promote  the  use  of 
the  national  currency. 

11.  Resolved,  That  we  approve  the  position  taken  by  the  Govern- 
ment, that  the  people  of  the  United  States  can  never  regard  with  in- 
difference the  attempt  of  any  European  power  to  overthrow  by  force, 
or  to  supplant  by  fraud,  the  institutions  of  any  republican  govern- 
ment on  the  Western  continent;  and  that  they  will  view  with  extreme 
jealousy,  as  menacing  to  the  peace  and  independence  of  their  own 


158  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

country,  the  efforts  of  any  such  power  to  obtain  new  footholds  for 
monarchical  governments,  sustained  by  foreign  military  force,  in  near 
proximity  to  the  United  States. 

MR.  LINCOLN'S  ADDRESS. 

In  answer  to  the  committee  appointed  to  notify  him  of  his  nomina- 
tion, headed  by  Governor  Dennison,  Mr.  Lincoln  said: 

u  I  will  neither  conceal  my  gratification  nor  restrain  the  expression 
of  my  gratitude  that  the  Union  people,  through  their  convention,  in 
the  continued  effort  to  save  and  advance  the  nation,  have  deemed  me 
not  unworthy  to  remain  in  my  present  position.  I  know  no  reason  to 
doubt  that  I  shall  accept  the  nomination  tendered;  and  yet  perhaps 
I  should  not  declare  definitely  before  reading  and  considering  what 
is  called  the  platform.  I  will  say  now,  however,  I  approve  the  dec- 
laration in  favor  of  so  amending  the  Constitution  as  to  prohibit 
slavery  throughout  the  nation.  When  the  people  in  revolt,  with  a 
hundred  days  of  explicit  notice  that  they  could  within  those  days  re- 
sume their  allegiance  without  the  overthrow  of  their  institutions  and 
that  they  could  not  so  resume  it  afterward,  elected  to  stand  out,  such 
amendment  to  the  Constitution  as  is  now  proposed  became  a  fitting 
and  necessary  conclusion  to  the  final  success  of  the  Union  cause. 
Such  alone  can  meet  and  cover  all  cavils.  Now  the  unconditional 
Union  men,  North  and  South,  perceive  its  importance  and  embrace  it. 
In  the  joint  names  of  Liberty  and  Union,  let  us  labor,  to  give  it  legal 
form  and  practical  effect." 

DEMOCRATIC  PLATFORM  OF    1864. 

Resolved,  That  in  the  future,  as  in  the  past,  we  will  adhere  with 
unswerving  fidelity  to  the  Union  under  the  Constitution  as  the  only 
solid  foundation  of  our  strength,  security,  and  happiness  as  a  people, 
and  as  a  framework  of  government  equally  conducive  to  the  welfare 
and  prosperity  of  all  the  States,  both  Northern  and  Southern. 

Resolved,  That  this  Convention  does  explicitly  declare,  as  the  sense 
of  the  American  people,  that  after  four  years  of  failure  to  restore  the 
Union  by  the  experiment  of  war,  during  which,  under  the  pretense  of 
a  military  necessity,  or  war  power  higher  than  the  Constitution,  the 
Constitution  itself  has  been  disregarded  in  every  part,  and  public 
liberty  and  private  right  alike  trodden  down,  and  the  material  pros- 
perity of  the  country  essentially  impaired — justice,  humanity,  liberty, 
and  the  public  welfare  demand  that  immediate  efforts  be  made  for  a 
cessation  of  hostilities,  with  a  view  to  an  ultimate  convention  of  the 
States,  or  other  peaceable  means,  to  the  end  that,  at  the  earliest  prac- 


DOCUMENTARY   HISTORY   OF  THE   EPOCH.  159 

ticable  moment,  peace  may  be  restored  on  the  basis  of  the  Federal 
Union  of  the  States. 

Resolved,  That  the  direct  interference  of  the  military  authorities  of 
the  United  States  in  the  recent  elections  held  in  Kentucky,  Maryland, 
Missouri,  and  Delaware  was  a  shameful  violation  of  the  Constitution; 
and  a  repetition  of  such  acts  in  the  approaching  election  will  be  held 
as  revolutionary,  and  resisted  with  all  the  means  and  power  under 
our  control. 

Resolved,  That  the  aim  and  object  of  the  Democratic  party  is  to 
preserve  the  Federal  Union  and  the  rights  of  the  States  unimpaired; 
and  they  hereby  declare  that  they  consider  that  the  administrative 
usurpation  of  extraordinary  and  dangerous  powers  not  granted  by 
the  Constitution;  the  subversion  of  the  civil  by  military  law  in  States 
not  in  insurrection;  the  arbitrary  military  arrest,  imprisonment,  trial, 
and  sentence  of  American  citizens  in  States  where  civil  law  exists  in 
full  force;  the  suppression  of  freedom  of  speech  and  of  the  press;  the 
denial  of  the  right  of  asylum;  the  open  and  avowed  disregard  of 
State  rights;  the  employment  of  unusual  test  oaths;  and  the  inter- 
ference with  and  denial  of  the  right  of  the  people  to  bear  arms  in  their 
defense,  are  calculated  to  prevent  a  restoration  of  the  Union  and  the 
perpetuation  of  a  government  deriving  its  just  powers  from  the  con- 
sent of  the  governed. 

Resolved,  That  the  shameful  disregard  of  the  administration  to  its 
duty  in  respect  to  our  fellow-citizens  who  are  now,  and  long  have  been, 
prisoners  of  war  and  in  a  suffering  condition,  deserves  the  severest 
reprobation,  on  the  score  alike  of  public  policy  and  common  hu- 
manity. 

Resolved,  That  the  sympathy  of  the  Democratic  party  is  heartily 
and  earnestly  extended  to  the  soldiery  of  our  army  and  the  sailors  of 
our  navy,  who  are  and  have  been  in  the  field  and  on  the  sea,  under 
the  flag  of  our  country;  and,  in  the  event  of  its  attaining  power,  they 
will  receive  all  the  care,  protection,  and  regard  that  the  brave  soldiers 
and  sailors  of  the  Kepublic  have  so  nobly  earned. 


THE  PERIOD  OF  RECONSTRUCTION. 
I. 

THE  THIRTEENTH  AMENDMENT. 

The  Thirty -eighth  Congress — Schuyler  Colfax,  Speaker — Cox  and 
Long — Henry  Winter  Davis  and  Robert  C.  Schenck — Grant  Made 
Lieutenant-General — Ashley  and  the  Amendment — It  Passes  the 
Senate — General  Henderson — Defeated  in  the  House — Oppo- 
nents and  Champions — Holman,  Wood,  and  Randall — Pendleton 
—President  Lincoln's  Message — Reconsidered  in  the  House— 
The  Debate — Mr.  Cox's  Able  Argument — The  Vote — Ratification 
of  the  Amendment. 

HE  period  of  Reconstruction  properly  begins  with  the  adop- 
tion of  the  Thirteenth  Amendment  to  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  in  the  38th  Congress.  The  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives in  this  Congress,  chosen  in  the  year  of  reaction, 
1862,  was  a  body  unlike  any  of  its  predecessors.  Few  of  its  members 
had  been  prominent  in  preceding  Congresses.  Some  of  the  leading 
Republican  members  of  the  37th  Congress  had  declined  a  re-election, 
fearing  defeat,  and  others  had  been  beaten.  The  names  of  E.  G. 
Spaulding,  Roscoe  Conkling,  Charles  B.  Sedgwick,  and  A.  B.  Olin 
disappeared  from  the  roll  of  the  New  York  delegation.  Galusha  A. 
Grow  was  not  returned  from  Pennsylvania.  John  A.  Bingham  and 
Samuel  Shellabarger,  of  Ohio,  were  both  beaten  in  Republican  dis- 
tricts. The  most  active  and  distinguished  members  of  the  new  House 
included  Isaac  N.  Arnold,  John  F.  Farnsworth,  Owen  Lovejoy,  and 
E.  D.  Washburne,  of  Illinois;  Schuyler  Colfax  and  George  W.  Julian, 
of  Indiana;  Frederick  A.  Pike,  of  Maine;  Henry  L.  Dawes,  Daniel  WT. 
Gooch,  and  Alexander  H.  Rice,  of  Massachusetts;  William  Windom, 
of  Minnesota;  James  M.  Ashley,  of  Ohio;  Thaddeus  Stevens  and  Will- 
iam D.  Kelley,  of  Pennsylvania,  and  Justin  S.  Morrill,  of  Vermont. 
The  new  Republican  members  wTho  became  prominent  comprised 
Godlove  S.  Orth,  of  Indiana;  William  B.  Allison,  John  A.  Kasson,  and 
James  F.  Wilson,  of  Iowa;  James  G.  Blaine,  of  Maine;  John  A.  J. 
Cresswell  and  Henry  Winter  Davis,  of  Maryland ;  Oakes  Ames,  George 
S.  Boutwell,  Samuel  Hooper,  and  William  B.  Washburn,  of  Massa- 
chusetts; Ignatius  Donnelly,  of  Minnesota;  Robert  C.  Schenck,  of 
Ohio;  Leonard  Myers,  Charles  O'Neill,  and  Glenni  W.  Schofield,  of 


THE   THIRTEENTH   AMENDMENT. 


161 


Pennsylvania,  and  Thomas  A.  Jencks,  of  Rhode  Island.  Lovejoy  died 
before  the  expiration  of  his  term,  and  Fenton  resigned  to  become 
Governor  of  New  York.  Among  the  few  prominent  Democrats  who 
were  re-elected  were  William  S.  Holman  and  Daniel  W.  Voorhees,  of 
Indiana;  Benjamin  Wood,  of  New  York,  and  Samuel  S.  Cox  and 
George  H.  Peudleton,  of  Ohio.  The  Democratic  leaders  of  subsequent 
years,  who  came  to  the  House  for  the  first  time,  included  William  M. 
Morrison  and  John  T.  Stuart,  of  Illinois;  James  Brooks,  Francis  Ker- 
nan,  and  Fernando  Wood,  of  New  York;  Alexander  Long,  of  Ohio; 
Samuel  J.  Randall,  of  Pennsylvania,  and  Charles  A.  Eldridge,  of  Wis- 
consin. The  new  Republican  Senators  were  Nathan  A.  Farwell,  of 
Maine,  who  succeeded  William  Pitt  Fessendeu;  Alexander  Kamsey, 
of  Minnesota;  B.  Gratz  Brown,  of 
Missouri;  Edwin  D.  Morgan,  of  New 
York,  and  William  Sprague,  of 
Rhode  Island.  The  new  Democratic 
Senators  were  William  A.  Richard- 
son, of  Illinois;  Thomas  A.  Hen- 
dricks,  of  Indiana;  Reverdy  John- 
son, of  Maryland;  William  Wright, 
of  New  Jersey,  and  Charles  R.  Buck- 
alew,  of  Pennsylvania. 

If  Mr.  Grow  had  been  re-elected 
he  would,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
have  been  accorded  the  Speaker- 
ship  of  the  House,  but  in  his  ab- 
sence the  Republicans  chose  Schuy- 
ler  Colfax  as  his  successor.  Mr. 
Colfax  had  already  served  eight 
years  in  Congress  from  a  dis- 
trict previously  Democratic  and 

always  close.  In  1862  his  majority  was  only  229.  He  was  descended 
from  good  Revolutionary  stock,  his  grandfather  being  Captain 
William  Colfax,  of  the  Connecticut  Line,  and  his  grandmother  a 
cousin  of  General  Philip  Schuyler.  His  father,  Schuyler  Colfax, 
who  held  a  position  in  a  New  York  bank,  died  before  his  son  and 
namesake  was  born,  leaving  his  widow  and  child  in  straitened 
circumstances.  W7hat  education  young  Colfax  received  was  in  the 
public  schools  of  New  York  city,  but  he  was  withdrawn  at  an  early 
age  to  earn  his  livelihood  and  help  to  support  his  mother.  The  widow 
Colfax  married  a  second  time,  and  with  her  husband  emigrated  to 
Indiana,  taking  her  son,  Schuyler,  with  her.  There  he  learned  the 
trade  of  a  printer,  and  conducted  a  successful  weekly  newspaper  at 


SCIIUYLEK   COLFAX. 


162 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 


South  Bend  before  he  entered  public  life.  He  was  very  industrious, 
and  in  Congress  he  was  soon  recognized  as  one  of  the  ablest  parlia- 
mentarians in  the  House.  His  cordiality  of  manner  earned  him  the 
nickname  of  "  Smiler  "  Colfax,  but  his  moderation  and  tact  made  him 
very  popular.  He  came  to  the  chair  with  the  good-will  of  both  sides 
of  the  House,  and  as  Speaker  he  was  able,  prompt,  fair-minded,  gen- 
erous, and  dignified. 

The  principal  opponent  of  Mr.  Colfax  for  the  Speakership  was  Mr. 
Cox,  of  Ohio.  Cox  received  42  votes  to  101  for  Colfax,  and  39  divided 
between  six  other  candidates.  He  was  serving  his  third  term  in  the 
House,  but  his  personal  popularity  was  greater  than  the  esteem  in 
which  he  was  held  politically.  He  was  too  independent  in  his  speeches 
to  make  a  good  Peace  Democrat,  and  too  conservative  in  his  votes  to 

be  accepted  as  a  good  War  Democrat. 
The  consequence  was  that  he  was  un- 
able to  command  the  united  vote  of  his 
party  in  a  Congress  in  which  Alexander 
Long  was  one  of  his  colleagues.  Long 
came  very  near  expulsion  in  April,  1864, 
for  saying  in  a  speech  in  the  House  that 
he  was  in  favor  of  the  recognition  of  the 
Southern  Confederacy.  Men  of  the 
Long  type  voted  for  John  L.  Dawson,  of 
Pennsylvania,  for  Speaker,  because  Cox 
wras  not  bold  enough  to  suit  them,  but 
Cox  long  afterward  cherished  the  delu- 
sion that  a  resolution  for  the  appoint- 
ment of  Peace  Commissioners,  offered 
by  Long  in  1864,  was  identical  with  a 
resolution  offered  by  him  in  1861.  Mr. 

Cox  failed  to  see  in  his  later  years  that  in  1861  a  resolution  might  not 
be  offensive,  while  the  same  resolution  in  1864  was  disloyal. 

The  oratorical  honors  of  the  38th  Congress  went  to  Henry  Winter 
Davis,  of  Maryland.  Davis  had  served  six  years  in  the  House  as  an 
"  American,"  1855-61.  He  supported  Bell  and  Everett  in  1860,  and 
was  beaten  as  a  candidate  for  re-election.  The  war  made  him  a  Re- 
publican, and  it  was  as  a  Republican  that  he  was  elected  as  a  Repre- 
sentative from  Baltimore  in  1862.  As  a  debater  he  was  unrivaled, 
and  as  an  orator  he  was  brilliant  beyond  any  of  his  contemporaries. 
Although  he  was  mainly  instrumental  in  holding  his  State  in  its 
loyalty  to  the  Union,  he  wras  never  in  hearty  accord  writh  President 
Lincoln's  administration,  and  sought  to  prevent  Lincoln's  renomina- 
tion  in  1864.  But  the  leader  of  the  House  in  the  38th  Congress  was 


HARRY    WINTER    DAVIS. 


THE   THIRTEENTH   AMENDMENT. 


163 


General  Robert  C.  Schenck,  not  Henry  Winter  Davis.  Schenck  had 
entered  the  army  at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  but,  like  most  of  the 
political  generals — Banks,  Butler,  McClernand,  and  others  less  famous 
—he  had  not  proved  exceptionally  brilliant  as  a  soldier.  In  1862  he 
was  selected  to  oppose  the  re-election  of  Vallandigham,  and  succeeded 
in  defeating  that  blatant  advocate  of  secession  in  Ohio,  in  a  Demo- 
cratic district,  in  a  year  when  the  Democrats  captured  eight  Repub- 
lican districts  in  the  State.  General  Schenck  had  previously  served 
eight  years  in  Congress,  1843-51,  and  was  the  American  Minister  at 
Rio  Janeiro  under  President  Fillmore.  As  a  Whig  he  had  not  ac- 
cepted the  Wilmot  Proviso,  but  as  a  Republican  in  the  38th  Congress 
he  supplanted  Stevens  as  the  leader,  first  in  Committee  of  the  Whole 
and  then  as  chairman  of  the  Com- 
mittee on  Ways  and  Means.  In  the 
discussions  under  the  five-minute 
rule  he  was  a  marvel  of  clear  and 
compact  statement.  His  first  posi- 
tion after  the  organization  of  the 
House  was  chairman  of  the  Com- 
mittee on  Military  Affairs,  at  that 
time  of  greater  importance  even 
than  the  WTays  and  Means.  In  ora- 
tory Schenck  was  not  as  graceful 
as  Davis,  but  "  on  his  feet,"  Mr. 
Blaine  says,  "  he  had  no  equal  in 
the  House."  The  younger  men  in 
both  chambers  will  be  treated  at 
length  as  they  won  their  way  to 
distinction. 

The  first  of  the  military  meas- 
ures in  the  38th  Congress  to  draw 

the  political  fire  of  the  soldier  statesmen  was  a  bill  introduced  on  the 
opening  day  of  the  session  to  empower  the  President  to  appoint  a 
lieutenant-general  for  all  our  armies.  The  fact  that  this  measure  was 

o 

presented  by  E.  B.  Washburne,  of  Illinois,  pointed  unmistakably  to 
the  appointment  of  General  Grant  to  this  controlling  place.  Wash- 
burne, like  Grant,  was  from  Galena,  but  the  two  townsmen  had  never 
spoken  to  each  other  before  the  outbreak  of  the  rebellion.  It  was  to 
Washburne,  however,  that  Grant  owed  his  first  commission  as  a 
brigadier-general,  and  as  the  Congressman  was  the  sponsor,  so  he 
was  afterward  the  constant  friend  of  the  soldier.  Washburne  made 
no  secret  of  the  fact  that  the  superlative  rank  to  be  created  by  his 
measure  was  intended  for  Grant.  In  the  House  Military  Committee 


ROBERT  C.  SCHENCK. 


164 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 


E.    B.    WASHBURN. 


the  bill  had  only  one  enthusiastic  supporter,  General  Farnsworth,  by 
whom  it  was  reported  in  an  able  speech.  General  Schenck,  the 
chairman  of  the  committee,  thought  it  premature.  Not  a  very  success- 
ful soldier  himself,  he  was  prone 
to  doubt  the  military  qualities  of 
the  more  successful  generals. 
Eighteen  months  before,  McClel- 
lan  would  have  been  selected; 
after  the  battle  of  Gettysburg, 
Meade  would  have  been  the  man; 
in  the  midst  of  his  successes  in 
the  Southwest,  Rosecrans  might 
have  been  appointed — at  the 
time  it  was  difficult  to  predict 
who  would  have  precedence  in 
the  end.  These  assumptions  were 
scarcely  true,  and  they  had  no 
force  when  applied  to  Grant.  In 
spite  of  his  doubts,  Schenck  an- 
nounced his  intention  to  support 
the  bill.  But  there  was  one  young  soldier  statesman  from  Ohio  on  the 
Military  Committee,  who  had  set  squadron  in  the  field  too  often  to  sur- 
render his  judgment,  when  it  came  to  selecting  a  great  commander  for 

all  the  armies  of  the  Union.  He 
was  the  Representative  from  the 
Ashtabula  district,  and  sat  in  the 
seat  so  long  filled  by  Joshua  R.  Gid- 
dings.  He  had  become  president 
of  an  Ohio  college  almost  as  soon 
as  he  became  an  alumnus  of  Will- 
iams; he  had  studied  law,  and  had 
been  a  member  of  the  Ohio  Sen- 
ate; entering  the  army  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  war  in  command 
of  a  regiment,  he  served  as  chief 
of  staff  to  General  Rosecrans,  and 
was  rewarded  for  distinguished 
services  bv  being;  made  in  suc- 


GEN.    J.    A.    GARFIELD. 


cession     a     brigadier-general     and 


major-general    of    volunteers.      At 

Chickamauga  his  achievements  were  especially  brilliant.  General 
Garfield  was  in  Congress  only  a  few  days  when  he  evinced  his  oppo- 
sition to  the  bill,  and  one  of  his  first  speeches  in  the  House  was  against 


THE   THIRTEENTH   AMENDMENT.  165 

its  passage.  The  bill  was  passed  by  96  yeas  to  41  nays.  Stevens  and 
Winter  Davis,  as  well  as  Garfield,  voted  against  it.  Randall,  of  Penn- 
sylvania; Morrison,  of  Illinois;  Eldridge,  of  Wisconsin,  and  Voorhees, 
of  Indiana,  were  among  the  Democrats  who  voted  for  it. 

The  test  measure  of  the  38th  Congress  was  the  Thirteenth  Amend- 
ment to  the  Constitution.  It  was  first  offered  in  the  House,  December 
14,  1863,  by  James  M.  Ashle}^  of  Ohio.  Ashley  was  as  radical  on  the 
slavery  question  as  Giddings  had  been  for  many  years  before,  but  he 
never  obtained  the  fame  of  the  older  Ohio  Abolitionist.  He  spoke 
with  earnestness  and  force  in  behalf  of  his  favorite  measure,  and  he 
will  always  be  remembered  for  the  watchful  care  he  bestowed  upon  it 
in  a  Congress  not  disposed  to  adopt  it.  After  its  introduction,  Mr. 
Holman,  of  Indiana,  objected  to  the  second  reading  of  the  bill,  but  the 
objection  was  overruled,  and  it  wras  referred  to  the  Judiciary  Com- 
mittee. It  soon  became  apparent  that  the 
measure  had  no  chance  of  receiving  the  neces- 
sary two-thirds  vote  at  that  session  of  Con- 
gress. Mr.  Arnold,  of  Illinois,  introduced  a 
joint  resolution  proposing  a  like  amendment 
to  the  Constitution  a  few  days  later.  Mr.  Hol- 
man moved  to  lay  this  resolution  on  the  table. 
His  motion  failed  by  only  79  nays  to  58  yeas. 
Before  any  action  was  taken  in  the  House  on 
Mr.  Ashley's  bill,  a  joint  resolution,  providing 
for  the  abolition  of  slavery  by  a  Constitutional 
amendment,  was  offered  in  the  Senate  by  Mr. 
Henderson,  of  Missouri,  reported  from  the  Ju-  GEN.  JOHN  B.  HENDKRSON. 
diciary  Committee,  and  passed  by  a  vote  of  38 

yeas  to  6  nays.  The  Senators  voting  in  the  negative  were  Garrett 
Davis,  and  Powell,  of  Kentucky;  Hendricks,  of  Indiana;  McDougall, 
of  California,  arid  Kiddle  and  Saulsbury,  of  Delaware.  "  I  bid  fare- 
well to  all  hope  of  reconstruction  of  the  Union,"  Saulsbury  said  upon 
the  anouncement  of  the  vote. 

John  B.  Henderson,  the  author  of  the  resolution,  had  been  ap- 
pointed a  Senator  from  Missouri  after  the  expulsion  of  Trusten  Polk 
in  January,  1862.  General  Henderson  had  been  a  Douglas  Democrat, 
but  as  one  of  the  most  prominent  and  active  Union  men  of  his  State, 
he  was  of  great  service  in  frustrating  the  schemes  of  the  Secessionists 
in  1861.  He  was  a  man  of  marked  ability  and  probity.  When  he  be- 
came a  Republican  the  geniality  of  his  nature  prevented  him  from  be- 
coming a  bitter  partisan.  He  opposed  the  Confiscation  Act  of  1862 
because  it  would  "  cement  the  Southern  mind  against  us,  and  drive 
new  armies  of  excited  and  deluded  men  from  the  border  States  to 


166  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

espouse  the  cause  of  rebellion,"  but  lie  earnestly  supported  Mr.  Lin- 
coln's Compensated  Emancipation  policy,  and  labored  strenuously 
to  secure  the  passage  of  the  Missouri  Compensation  bill.  When  this 
measure  was  defeated  by  the  factious  opposition  of  the  Democratic 
Representatives  from  his  own  State,  he  took  the  lead  in  the  Senate  in 
proposing  the  complete  abolition  of  slavery.  Garrett  Davis  was  a 
Kentucky  Whig,  who  had  succeeded  John  C.  Breckinridge — a  man 
of  unquestionable  loyalty,  but  opposed  to  any  interference  with 
slavery.  When  the  bill  abolishing  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia 
was  before  Congress  in  1862,  he  wanted  it  amended  so  as  to  provide 
for  colonization  beyond  the  limits  of  the  United  States,  on  the  ground 
that  the  residence  of  liberated  slaves  among  the  whites  would  result 
in  a  war  of  races.  When  General  Henderson's  resolution  was  reported 
in  the  Senate  in  February,  1863,  Mr.  Davis  moved  to  amend  it  so  as  to 
exclude  all  the  descendants  of  negroes  on  the  maternal  side  from  all 
places  of  office  and  trust  under  the  Government  of  the  United  States, 
and  he  carried  his  pro-slavery  feeling  so  far  as  to  propose  a  Constitu- 
tional amendment  for  the  consolidation  of  the  six  New  England  States 
into  two  States,  to  be  called  East  New  England  and  West  New  Eng- 
land. Thomas  A.  Hendricks,  the  successor  of  Jesse  D.  Bright,  who 
was  expelled  for  disloyalty,  was  a  man  of  pure  character,  eminent 
abilities,  and  courteous  manners,  and  he  was  highly  respected  even  by 
the  Senators  from  whom  he  differed  so  radically  on  the  slavery  ques- 
tion. He  objected  to  any  interference  with  slavery  because  the  eleven 
States  then  in  rebellion  were  not  represented  in  Congress.  James  A. 
McDougall  had  succeeded  William  M.  Gwin,  the  rabid  secessionist 
leader  of  California.  He  entered  the  Senate  as  a  War  Democrat,  and 
for  a  while  sustained  the  administration,  but  he  soon  fell  back  into 
the  ranks  of  the  old  Democracy.  Both  the  Delaware  Senators,  George 
Eeed  Kiddle  and  Willard  Saulsbury,  clung  tenaciously  to  slavery  be- 
cause their  State  was  nominally  a  slave  State,  and  they  believed,  sin- 
cerely, no  doubt,  that  the  Union  could  not  be  restored  unless  slavery 
was  preserved. 

When  the  Senate  resolution  reached  the  House  its  reception  was 
even  more  discouraging  than  that  of  the  resolution  offered  by  Mr. 
Arnold.  It  was  met  at  the  threshold  by  an  objection  to  its  second 
reading  by  Mr.  Holman,  who  had  previously  objected  in  a  like  man- 
ner to  Arnold's  resolution,  and  was  already  acquiring  his  lasting 
reputation  as  the  "  great  objector."  Holman  had  entered  the  36th 
Congress  as  a  moderate  Democrat,  and  his  conservative  spirit  always 
led  him  to  interpose  objections  to  any  of  the  war  measures  that  con- 
templated the  destruction  of  slavery.  The  first  test  vote  showed  that 
there  were  55  members  opposed  to  the  amendment,  and  only  76  for  it, 


THE   THIRTEENTH   AMENDMENT.  167 

in  a  House  that  would  require  110  votes  for  its  passage.  In  the  debate 
that  followed  the  principal  speakers  in  opposition  to  the  resolution 
were  Fernando  Wood,  Samuel  J.  Randall,  and  George  H.  Pendleton, 
Northern  Democrats,  and  Robert  Mallory,  a  Kentucky  Whig.  Wood 
was  Mayor  of  New  York  City  at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  and  had 
been  accused  of  a  wrild  scheme  of  making  the  metropolis  a  free  city. 
Although  he  had  the  reputation  of  being  the  leader  of  the  turbulent 
element,  he  was  a  man  of  polished  manners  and  dignified  bearing. 
He,  no  doubt,  believed  in  his  own  denunciations  of  the  measure  as 
"  unjust  in  itself,  a  breach  of  good  faith  utterly  irreconcilable  with 
expediency."  Kandall  \vas  beginning  a  distinguished  career  in  the 
House,  but,  like  most  young  Democrats,  he  could  see  in  the  proposed 
amendment  only  the  beginning  of  radical  changes  in  the  Constitu- 
tion, and  he  regarded  the  abolition  of  slavery  as  the  forerunner  of 
usurpations  of  which  the  conservative  young  men  of  that  period  had 
imaginary  but  overwhelming  fears.  Pendleton  was  the  Democratic 
leader  of  the  House,  and  he  took  the  extreme  ground  that  the  Union 
as  it  was  then  constituted  had  no  power  to  abolish  slavery.  His  ten- 
der regard  for  the  peculiar  institution  of  the  States  in  rebellion  led 
him  to  look  upon  slavery  as  a  part  of  the  form  and  spirit  of  the  Gov- 
ernment, and  he  wanted  it  preserved  for  the  wayward  sisters  when 
they  were  compelled  to  return  to  their  duty.  Mr.  Mallory  contended 
that  President  Lincoln  had  been  compelled  to  issue  the  Emancipation 
Proclamation  by  the  War  Governors,  who  had  met  at  Altoona  in  1862. 
The  principal  speakers  in  behalf  of  the  amendment  were  Mr.  Morris, 
of  New  York;  Mr.  Ingersoll,  of  Illinois,  and  Mr.  Boutwell,  of  Massa- 
chusetts. Daniel  Morris,  as  well  as  Eben  C.  Ingersoll  and  George  S. 
Boutwell,  was  serving  his  first  term  in  Congress.  It  seems  extraordi- 
nary now  that  the  principal  arguments  in  behalf  of  the  most  far- 
reaching  measure  ever  before  Congress  should  have  been  committed 
in  its  initial  stages  to  men  new  to  public  life.  The  apparent  indiffer- 
ence of  Stevens,  WTashburne,  and  Schenck  was  due,  no  doubt,  to  the 
fact  that  the  fate  of  the  Senate  resolution  in  the  House  was  a  foregone 
conclusion.  When  the  vote  was  taken  the  yeas  were  93  to  65  nays, 
27  short  of  the  necessary  two-thirds.  Mr.  Ashley,  who  had  voted  in 
the  negative  for  the  purpose,  moved  to  reconsider  the  vote,  and  an- 
nounced that  when  Congress  again  assembled  in  December,  1864,  he 
would  press  his  motion  with  the  expectation  that  the  measure  would 
pass. 

In  his  annual  message  to  Congress,  after  the  Presidential  elections 
and  the  election  of  a  new  House  of  Representatives,  largely  Republi- 
can, President  Lincoln  urged  the  passage  of  the  Thirteenth  Amend- 
ment, making  a  special  appeal  to  the  Democrats  who  had  voted 


168 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 


against  it  a  few  months  before.  "  Without  questioning  the  wisdom 
or  patriotism  of  those  who  stood  in  opposition,"  he  said,  "  I  venture 
to  recommend  the  reconsideration  and  passage  of  the  measure  at  the 
present  session.  Of  course  the  abstract  question  is  not  changed,  but 
an  intervening  election  shows  almost  certainly  that  the  next  Congress 
will  pass  the  measure  if  this  Congress  does  not.  Hence  there  is  only 
a  question  of  time  as  to  when  the  proposed  amendment  will  go  to  the 
States  for  their  action,  and  as  it  is  to  go  at  all  events,  may  we  not 
agree  that  the  sooner  the  better?  "  The  President  was  especially 
anxious  for  the  amendment  to  maintain  the  validity  of  the  Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation.  "  In  presenting  the  abandonment  of  armed  re- 
sistance on  the  part  of  the  insurgents  as  the  only  indispensable  con- 


dition to 


ending  the 


war,"  he  said, 


"  I  retract  nothing  heretofore  said  as 
to  slavery.  .  .  .  While  I  remain 
in  my  present  position  I  shall  not  at- 
tempt to  retract  or  modify  the 
Emancipation  Proclamation.  Nor 
shall  I  return  to  slavery  any  per- 
son who  is  free  by  the  terms  of  that 
Proclamation  or  by  any  of  the 
Acts  of  Congress.  If  the  people 
should,  by  whatever  mode  or  means, 
make  it  an  Executive  duty  to  re-en- 
slave such  persons,  another,  and  not 
I,  must  be  their  instrument  to  per- 
form it." 

Having  preserved  the  parliament- 
ary status  of  the  amendment,  Mr. 
Ashley  was  in  a  position  to  comply 
with  the  President's  wish  for  its 

speedy  consideration,  and  to  verify  his  prediction  of  the  final  triumph 
of  a  measure  that  Mr.  Seward  considered  worth  an  army.  Accord- 
ingly, on  the  6th  of  January,  1865,  he  again  brought  the  question 
before  the  House.  Since  the  measure  had  failed  at  the  previous  ses- 
sion a  great  change  had  taken  place  in  the  attitude  of  many  of  the 
Democratic  Representatives  toward  the  amendment.  Even  Mr.  Voor- 
hees,  of  Indiana,  while  opposing  it,  recognized  the  thorough  success 
of  the  Union  cause — the  complete  downfall  of  the  Confederacy.  He 
had  been  an  extremist  only  less  violent  than  Vallandigham  and  Long, 
but  the  near  approach  of  the  end  of  the  rebellion  sobered  him  and 
made  him  temperate  of  speech.  Mr.  Ashley  opened  the  debate  with  a 
forcible  speech,  but  his  greatest  service  to  the  measure,  at  this  time, 


JAMES    M.    ASHLEY. 


THE   THIRTEENTH   AMENDMENT.  169 

was  the  pressure  he  brought  to  bear  on  every  man  on  the  Democratic- 
side  of  the  House,  whose  conscience  inclined  him  to  strike  the  dead- 
liest blow  that  could  be  given  to  the  rebellion  by  enfranchising  the 
slave.  The  peculiar  attitude  of  the  Southern  leaders  at  this  time  on 
the  question  of  slavery  proved  a  great  help  to  the  Thirteenth  Amend- 
ment in  the  crisis  of  its  fate.  "  We  are  not  fighting  for  slavery,"  Jef- 
ferson Davis  wrote  to  Governor  Vance,  of  North  Carolina,  a  few 
mouths  before;  "  we  are  fighting  for  independence;  and  that  or  ex- 
termination we  will  have."  If  the  South  was  not  fighting  for  slavery 
there  was  no  reason  why  the  North  should  consent  to  continue  it. 
"  The  party  to  which  I  belong  loves  the  Union  as  dearly  as  the  South 
loves  slavery,"  said  Mr.  Cox  during  the  debate.  "  If  they  can  let 
slavery  go  for  independence,  the  Democracy  can  let  it  go  for  the  sake 
of  the  Union."  This  was  the  line  upon  which  the  battle  was  fought 
and  won,  for  the  amendment  would  have  been  compelled  to  wait  an- 
other year  but  for  Democratic  aid. 

The  first  Democratic  speech  in  favor  of  the  measure  was  made  by 
Mr.  Odell,  of  New  York,  and  as  Mr.  Yeaman,  of  Kentucky,  spoke  on 
the  same  side  the  same  day,  Mr.  Pendleton  determined  to  rally  the  op- 
position. The  speeches  of  Voorhees,  Odell,  and  Yeaman  were  made  on 
the  9th  of  January,  and  Pendleton  spoke  on  the  12th.  Mr.  Pendleton 
had  come  out  of  the  Presidential  contest  with  increased  rather  than 
diminished  prestige  with  his  own  followers,  notwithstanding  the 
overwhelming  defeat  of  the  Peace  Democracy,  and  he  succeeded  in 
prolonging  the  battle  against  the  amendment.  He  held  that  the  right 
to  amend  was  limited  in  two  ways:  (1)  by  the  letter;  and  (2)  by  the 
spirit,  scope,  and  intent  of  the  Constitution.  It  was  a  question  of 
compact.  One  State,  the  smallest — Rhode  Island— could,  of  right, 
resist  such  an  amendment  by  force.  These  contentions  called  out  a 
number  of  the  young  orators  on  the  Republican  side  of  the  House  in 
reply,  including  General  Garfield  in  an  elaborate  argument;  Mr. 
Boutwell,  of  Massachusetts;  Mr.  Schofield,  of  Pennsylvania;  Mr.  Kas- 
son,  of  Iowa,  and  Mr.  Arnold,  of  Illinois.  Fully  one-third  of 
the  House  took  part  in  the  debate.  Mr.  Pendleton's  most  troublesome 
antagonist,  however,  was  one  of  his  own  colleagues — a  Democrat- 
Mr.  Cox.  There  never  was  a  bolder  or  more  logical  Constitutional 
lawyer  in  Congress  than  Cox.  Where  others  showed  their  skill  by 
evading  a  question,  he  often  exhibited  greater  skill  by  facing  it  as 
sound  Democratic  doctrine.  It  was  so  in  this  case.  "  It  was  with 
some  amusement,"  he  said,  "  that  I  listened  to  my  two  colleagues 
(Messrs.  Pendleton  and  Ashley)  yesterday.  How  adroitly  the  Demo- 
cratic member  sought  to  catch  the  Republican.  How  he  plied  him  to 
admit  the  power  to  establish  slavery!  How  shrewdly  my  colleague 


170  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

on  the  other  side  evaded!  On  the  other  hand,  members  on  the  other 
side  sought  to  entangle  my  colleague  (Mr.  Pendleton)  with  some 
of  his  former  votes  !  How  both  evaded  the  issues  presented  in  their 
former  positions  !  while  the  humbler  member  who  now  addresses 
you  sat  complacently  consistent  amid  the  melodramatic  performance, 
ready  to  admit  that  the  power  to  change  the  fundamental  law  by 
amendment  is  unlimited,  under  the  guards  and  modes  prescribed, 
even  to  the  establishment  of  slavery  or  a  monarchy  of  entire  freedom 
or  entire  democracy.  Both  of  my  friends  deny  this  as  extreme  and 
heterodox:  the  one,  because  he  would  have  nothing  but  limited  Re- 
publicanism as  the  form  of  our  government;  that  is  my  Democratic 
colleague  who  is  so  Republican;  the  other,  because  he  would  have 
nothing  but  sweeping  Democracy  as  the  basis  of  our  Constitution; 
that  is  my  Republican  colleague  who  is  so  Democratic.  The  wishes 

of  each  color  their  present  arguments  as  to 
power.  When  slavery  is  to  be  guaranteed, 
my  colleague  from  Cincinnati  believes  with 
me  in  the  powrer  to  amend,  and  my  colleague 
from  Toledo  denies  it.  When  it  is  to  be  abol- 
ished, my  colleague  from  Toledo  believes 
with  me  in  the  power  to  amend,  and  the  other 
denies  it.  Both  deny  the  power  when  slavery 
is  to  be  affected,  and  both  admit  it  when  slav- 
ery is  not  to  be  affected.  I  have  them  both 
on  either  side,  and  each  on  both  sides,  and 
both  with  me.  I  accept  the  power  in  either 
case  as  they  claim  it,  but  go  beyond  them 

SAMUEL    S.    COX.  J  .     ft.      ,  ,,,, 

both,  for  I  stand  on  a  principle.     They  are 

enamored  of  the  power  only  when  one  case  is  absent.  Like  the 
fond  lover  of  two  maidens,  they  love  the  one  l  when  the  other  dear 
charmer's  away.'  Yet  they  are  unfaithful  to  both  because  they  are  so 
attached  to  either — unfaithful  because  they  are  not  upon  the  prin- 
ciple. I  can  extend  to  them  (as  a  member  from  New  York  used  to 
say  here  in  olden  times),  from  the  serene  Olympian  heights  of  my 
cerulean  consistency,  the  eternal  principle  of  Republicanism  and 
Democracy  which  will  reconcile  them  both  to  duty  and  the  Constitu- 
tion." 

The  power  to  amend  was  the  real  question  in  dispute,  and  Cox  had 
accepted  it,  with  its  logical  consequences,  two  days  before  Mr.  Pen- 
dleton's  speech  was  made.  While  Mr.  Kasson  was  speaking  on  the 
10th  Mr.  Mallory,  of  Kentucky,  asked  him  whether  by  an  amendment 
the  Constitution  might  not  be  changed  so  as  to  convert  the  Govern- 
ment into  a  monarchy,  an  aristocracy,  or  a  despotism.  With  Kasson's 


THE  THIRTEENTH  AMENDMENT. 


171 


consent  Cox  interjected  an  affirmative  reply.  "  I  carry  the  Democratic 
doctrine  to  such  an  extent,"  he  said,  "  that  I  maintain  that  the  people, 
speaking  through  three-fourths  of  the  States,  in  pursuance  of  the 
mode  prescribed  by  the  Constitution,  have  the  right  to  amend  it  in 
every  particular,  except  the  two  specified  in  that  instrument;  that 
this  includes  the  right  to  erect  a  monarchy;  to  make,  if  you  please, 
the  King  of  Dahomey  our  King."  Mr.  Cox  subsequently  pointed  out 
in  his  reply  to  Mr.  Pendleton  that  this  power  over  the  Constitution 
was  conceded  by  Madison,  by  Calhoun,  and  by  Jefferson  Davis.  It 
was,  indeed,  the  power  invoked  by  the  Peace  Conference  of  1861,  and 
by  the  Crittenden  Compromise.  Mr.  Bout  well  argued  that  the  power 
over  the  Constitution  was  limited  only  by  its  preamble,  but  Mr. 
Thayer,  of  Pennsylvania,  and  Mr.  Dawes,  of  Massachusetts,  went  fur- 
ther and  agreed  that  there  were 
no  limitations — that  three-fourths 
of  the  States  could  alter  the  pre- 
amble as  well  as  any  other  part 
of  the  instrument.  The  debate 
completely  demolished  the  theory 
propounded  by  Mr.  Pendleton, 
and  so  the  only  question  that 
remained  was  the  one  that  con- 
fronted the  friends  of  the  amend- 
ment at  the  beginning — whether 
a  majority  of  two-thirds  could  be 
obtained  in  the  House  to  submit  it 
for  the  approval  of  three-fourths 
of  the  States. 

Nearly  all  the  Republican  Rep- 
resentatives who  earned  distinc- 
tion in  the  debate  on  the  Thirteenth  Amendment  thus  paved  the  way 
to  national  recognition  and  eminent  public  service.  James  A.  Garfield 
was  only  estopped  from  sitting  in  the  United  States  Senate,  as  the 
colleague  of  John  Sherman,  by  his  election  to  the  Presidency.  George 
S.  Boutwell  was  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  under  President  Grant, 
and  succeeded  Henry  Wilson  in  the  Senate.  Henry  L.  Dawes,  after  a 
distinguished  career  in  the  House,  became  the  successor  of  Charles 
Sumner.  Glenni  W.  Schofield  and  M.  Russell  Thayer,  being  Pennsyl- 
vanians,  went  unrewarded  of  the  higher  preferment  that  Pennsyl- 
vania has  always  denied  to  her  ablest  men  in  the  House.  Ebon  C. 
Ingersoll,  who  was  the  successor  of  Owen  Lovejoy,  and  John  A.  Kas- 
son  remained  in  the  House  for  many  years,  but  George  H.  Yeaman 
and  James  S.  Rollins  suffered  later  in  the  political  upheaval  in  Ken- 


GEO.    8.    BOUTWELL. 


172  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

rucky  and  Missouri.  Three  Democrats,  Alexander  H.  Coffroth  and 
Archibald  McAllister,  of  Pennsylvania,  and  Anson  Herrick,  of  New 
York,  spoke  for  the  amendment  on  the  day  of  the  vote,  and  voted  as 
they  talked.  The  two  Pennsylvania  Representatives  represented  dis- 
tricts wrested  from  the  Republicans  in  1802,  and  Herrick  voted  for  a 
similar  constituency  in  New  York.  McAllister  and  Herrick  had  not 
been  re-elected,  and  Coffroth,  although  returned  as  elected,  was  un- 
seated by  his  Republican  competitor. 

The  final  struggle  over  the  Thirteenth  Amendment  took  place  on 
Tuesday,  January  31,  1865.  In  anticipation  of  the  vote  the  galleries 
of  the  House  were  crowded.  It  was  a  day  of  excitement  both  on  the 
floor  and  in  the  galleries.  It  was  not  until  4  o'clock  in  the  afternoon 
that  the  voting  began.  Most  of  the  members  kept  careful  tally  dur- 
ing the  progress  of  the  vote.  All  the  Republicans  voted  for  the 
amendment.  Eight  Representatives  were  absent,  all  Democrats. 
This  list  comprised  Daniel  Marcy,  of  New  Hampshire;  George  Mid- 
dleton  and  A.  J.  Rogers,  of  New  Jersey;  Jesse  Lazear,  of  Pennsyl- 
vania; John  F.  McKenny  and  Francis  C.  LeBlond,  of  Ohio;  and  Daniel 
W.  Voorhees  and  James  F.  McDowell,  of  Indiana.  Some  of  them 
were  expected  to  vote  for  the  measure,  and  it  was  alleged  they  were 
absent  by  design.  None  of  them  was  paired,  which  is  proof  that  they 
were  unwilling  to  vote  against  the  amendment  and  not  prepared  to 
vote  for  it.  Fourteen  Democrats  gave  their  votes  for  it.  They  were  J. 
E.  English,  of  Connecticut;  Anson  Herrick,  William  Radford,  Homer 
A.  Nelson,  John  B.  Steele,  and  John  Ganson,  of  New  York;  Joseph 
Baily,  A.  H.  Coffroth,  and  Archibald  McAllister,  of  Pennsylvania; 
AVells  A.  Hutchins,  of  Ohio;  Augustus  C.  Baldwin,  of  Michigan; 
Wheeler,  of  Wisconsin;  and  King  and  Rollins,  of  Missouri.  Of  these 
all  except  Nelson,  who  was  absent,  had  voted  against  the  amendment 
at  the  previous  session.  Radford  and  Steele  were  undecided  until 
the  last  moment,  and  changed  their  votes  on  the  final  passage.  Mr. 
Radford  was  the  only  one  of  the  fourteen,  with  the  exception  of  Coff- 
roth, \vlio  was  unseated,  who  had  been  elected  to  the  39th  Congress. 
One  Democrat  went  to  the  House  with  his  speech  in  his  pocket  justi- 
fying his  vote,  and  voted  with  the  opposition.  This  was  Samuel  S. 
Cox.  His  course  excited  surprise  and  criticism,  but  it  was  character- 
istic of  the  man.  He  learned  after  he  reached  the  floor  that  Peace 
Commissioners  from  the  Confederacy  were  on  their  way  to  Washing- 
ton, and  he  convinced  himself  that  the  amendment  would  prove  an 
obstacle  to  peace  and  union.  "  Weighing  in  the  one  scale,"  he  wrote 
long  afterward,  "  the  dead  body  of  slavery,  which  was  to  be  formally 
abolished  by  this  amendment,  and  in  the  other  peace  and  union — and 
these  latter  without  slavery — how  could  he  doubt  the  unwisdom  of 


THE   THIRTEENTH   AMENDMENT.  173 

an  amendment  which  would  postpone  peace  and  imperil  the  Union?  " 
If  slavery  was  an  abstract  question,  as  he  claimed,  made  so  through 
powder  and  ball,  the  true  course  clearly  was  to  prevent  its  resuscita- 
tion by  the  passage  of  the  amendment.  Mr.  Cox  did  not  believe  it 
was  dead.  While  he  saw  a  chance  of  union  with  slavery,  he  was  un- 
willing to  strike  down  the  institution  that  was  the  cause  of  the  seces- 
sion, and  after  four  years  of  war  he  still  clung  to  it  as  a  basis  of 
negotiations  with  the  South. 

The  amendment  was  adopted  by" a  vote  of  119  yeas  to  56  nays.  The 
result  was  received  with  vociferous  applause  from  the  galleries  and 
handshakings  and  congratulations  on  the  floor.  So  many  eager 
citizens  were  admitted  to  the  hall  of  the  House  that  members  were 
crowded  from  their  places,  and  a  jubilee  was  inaugurated  in  the 
chamber.  When  order  Avas  restored  Mr.  Ingersoll,  of  Illinois,  said: 
"  Mr.  Speaker,  in  honor  of  this  immortal  and  sublime  event,  I  move 
that  the  House  do  now  adjourn."  Mr.  Harris,  the  only  Representative 
from  Maryland  who  had  voted  against  the  amendment,  demanded 
the  ayes  and  noes,  and  they  were  recorded  121  to  24. 

The  Thirteenth  Amendment  is  as  follows: 

"  Be  it  resolved,  etc.,  That  the  following  article  be  proposed  to  the 
Legislatures  of  the  several  States  as  an  amendment  to  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States,  which,  when  ratified  by  three-fourths  of 
said  Legislatures,  shall  be  valid,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  as  a  part 
of  the  said  Constitution,  namely: 

"  Article  XIII. 

"  Section  1.  Neither  slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude,  except  as 
a  punishment  for  crime,  whereof  the  party  shall  have  been  duly  con- 
victed, shall  exist  within  the  United  States,  or  any  place  subject  to 
their  jurisdiction. 

"  Sec.  2.  Congress  shall  have  power  to  enforce  this  article  by  ap- 
propriate legislation." 

The  vote  in  the  House  stood  thus: 

YEAS  (Democrats  in  Italics). 

Maine — Elaine,  Perham,  Pike,  Rice. 
New  Hampshire — Patterson,  Rollins. 

Massachusetts — Alley,  Ames,   Baldwin,  Boutwell,   Dawes,   Eliot, 
Gooch,  Hooper,  Rice,  W.  D.  Washburn. 
Rhode  Island — Dixon,  Jenckes. 

Connecticut — Brandagee,  Deming,  English,  J.  H.  Hubbard. 
Vermont — Baxter,  Merrill,  Woodbridge. 


174  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

New  York — A.  W.  Clark,  Freeman  Clark,  Davis,  Frank,  Ganson, 
Griswold,  Herrick,  Hotchkiss,  Hulburd,  Kellogg,  Littlejohn,  Marvin, 
Miller,  Morris,  Nelson,  Odell,  Ponieroy,  Radford,  Steele,  Van  Valken- 
burg. 

New  Jersey — Starr. 

Pennsylvania — Bailij,  Broomall,  Coffroth,  Hale,  Kelley,  McAllister, 
Moorhead,  A.  Myers,  L.  Myers,  C.  O'Neill,  Schofield,  Stevens,  Thayer, 
Tracy,  Williams. 

Delaware — Smithers. 

Maryland — Cresswell,  Henry  Winter  Davis,  F.  Thomas,  Webster. 

West  Virginia — Blair,  Brown,  Whaley. 

Kentucky — Anderson,  Randall,  Smith,  Yeaman. 

Ohio — Ashley,  Eckley,  Garfield,  Ihitchins,  Schenck,  Spaulding. 

Indiana — Colfax,  Dumont,  Julian,  Orth. 

Illinois — Arnold,  Farnsworth,  Ingersoll,  Norton,  E.  B.  Washburne. 

Missouri — Blow,  Boyd,  Kiny,  Knox,  Loan,  McClurg,  J.  8.  Rollins. 

Michigan — A.  C.  Baldwin,  Beaman,  Driggs,  F.  W.  Kellogg,  Long- 
year,  Upson. 

Iowa — Allison,  Grinnell,  A.  W.  Hubbard,  Kasson,  Price,  Wilson. 

Wisconsin — Cobb,  Mclndoe,  Sloan,  Wheeler. 

Minnesota — Donnelly,  Windom. 

Kansas — Wilder. 

Oregon — McBride. 

Nevada — Worthington. 

California — Cole,  Higby,  Shannon.     Total,  119. 

NAYS  (all  Democrats). 

Maine — Sweat. 

New  York — Brooks,  Chanler,  Kalbfleisch,  Kernan,  Pruyn,  Town- 
send,  Ward,  Winfleld,  Ben.  Wood,  Fernando  Wood. 

New  Jersey — Perry,  W.  G.  Steele. 

Pennsylvania — Ancona,  Dawson,  Dennison,  P.  Johnson,  W.  H. 
Miller,  S.  J.  Randall,  Stiles,  Strouse. 

Maryland — B.  G.  Harris. 

Kentucky — Clay,  Grider,  Harding,  Mallory,  Wadsworth. 

Ohio — Bliss,  Cox,  Finck,  Wm.  Johnson,  Long,  J.  R.  Morris,  Noble, 
J.  O'Neill,  Pendleton,  C.  A.  White,  J.  W.  White. 

Indiana — Cravens,  Edgerton,  Harrington,  Holman,  Law. 

Illinois — J.  C.  Allen,  W.  J.  Allen,  Eden,  C.  M.  Harris,  Knapp,  Mor- 
rison, Robinson,  Ross,  Stuart. 

Wisconsin — J.  S.  Brown,  Eldridge. 

Missouri— Hall,  Scott.     Total,  56. 

Not  voting — Lazear,  Pennsylvania;  Marcy,  New  Hampshire;  Me- 


THE   THIRTEENTH   AMENDMENT.  175 

Do  well  and  Voorhees,  Indiana;  Le  Blond  and  McKinney,  Ohio;  Mid- 
dleton  and  Rogers,  New  Jersey — all  Democrats. 
The  vote  in  the  Senate  had  been: 

YEAS  (Democrats  in  Italics). 

Maine — Fessenden,  Merrill. 
New  Hampshire — Clark,  Hale. 
Massachusetts — Sumner,  Wilson. 
Rhode  Island — Anthon}^  Sprague. 
Connecticut — Dixon,  Foster. 
Vermont — Collamer,  Foot. 
New  York — Harris,  Morgan. 
New  Jersey — Ten  Eyck. 
Pennsylvania — Cowan. 
Maryland — Rcverdy  Johnson. 
West  Virginia — Van  Winkle,  Willey. 
Ohio — Sherman,  Wade. 
Indiana — Henry  S.  Lane. 
Illinois. — Trumbull. 
Missouri — Brown,  Henderson. 
Michigan — Chandler,  Howard. 
Iowa — Grimes,  Harlau. 
Wisconsin — Doolittle,  Howe. 
Minnesota — Ramsey,  Wilkinson. 
Kansas — J.  H.  Lane,  Pomeroy. 
Oregon — Harding,  Ncsinitli. 
California — Conness.    Total,  38. 

NAYS  (all  Democrats). 

Delaware — Riddle,  Saulsbury. 

Kentucky — Davis,  Powell. 

Indiana — Hendricks. 

California— McDougall.    Total,  6. 

Not  voting — Buckalew,  Pennsylvania;  Wright,  New  Jersey;  Hicks, 
Maryland;  Bowden  and  Carlile,  West  Virginia;  Richardson,  Illinois- 
all  Democrats. 

The  Thirteenth  Amendment  adopted  by  Congress  in  1865  was  in 
marked  contrast  with  the  one  proposed  and  so  strenuously  urged  in 
1861.  To  prevent  war  all  the  Democrats  and  some  Republicans  were 
willing  to  make  slavery  perpetual  in  the  organic  law.  To  end  the  war 
with  the  only  peace  that  could  be  perpetual  slavery  was  abolished 
for  all  time.  But  the  final  passage  of  the  amendment  by  the  House 


176  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

of  Representatives,  and  its  approval  by  the  President,  was  not  the  end 
of  the  anxiety  in  regard  to  its  validity,  even  should  it  receive  the  as- 
sent of  the  necessary  three-fourths  of  the  States.  The  number  of 
States  was  36.  The  number  required  for  the  ratification  of  the  amend- 
ment was  27.  The  number  of  the  States  in  rebellion  wras  11.  This 
required  its  ratification  by  two  of  the  seceding  States,  even  if  all  the 
States  that  had  remained  loyal  accepted  it.  Two  of  the  latter  re- 
jected it,  Delaware  and  Kentucky,  and  others  hesitated.  Of  the  States 
assenting  when  proclamation  of  the  ratification  was  made,  December 
18,  1805,  nine  had  been  in  rebellion.  The  only  safe  ground  wras  that 
the  Ordinances  of  Secession  were  void,  and  that  no  State  had  been  at 
any  time  out  of  the  Union.  When  the  Thirteenth  Amendment  was 
proclaimed  the  work  of  Reconstruction  was  the  most  important  ques- 
tion with  wThich  Congress  and  the  country  were  dealing. 


II. 

PEACE. 

The  Hampton  Koads  Conference — Lincoln's  Second  Inauguration- 
Close  of  the  War — Last  Confederate  Hopes — Assassination  of 
the  President — Mr.  Lincoln's  Character — His  Ideas  of  Recon- 
struction— A  New  Announcement  to  the  South  That  Was  Never 
Made. 


HE  rumors  of  negotiations  for  peace  that  deterred  Mr.  Cox 
from   voting   for  the   Thirteenth   Amendment   had   some 
foundation  in  fact.    They  were  initiated  by  the  venerable 
Francis  P.  Blair,  who  visited  Richmond  early  in  January, 
1865,  and  had  a  conference  with  Jefferson  Davis.    It  was  impossible 
that  they  should  have  any  result,  because  Mr.  Davis  insisted  upon 
treating  on  the  basis  of  "  two  countries."     Mr.  Blair,  however,  suc- 
ceeded in  having  three  commission- 
ers appointed  to  confer  with  Presi- 
dent Lincoln  and  Secretary  Seward, 
and  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  Rob- 
ert  M.   T.    Hunter,  and    John     A. 
Campbell  came  to  Hampton  Roads, 
where  they  dined  with  the  Secre- 
tary of  State  and  had  a  conference 
with  the  President.      The  meeting 
took  place  on  the  3d  of  February  on 
board      the      steamboat      "  River 
Queen."      Mr.  Lincoln  insisted  on 
three  preliminary  conditions:   (1) 
The  absolute  restoration  of  the  na- 
tional authority  in  all  the  States; 
(2)  no  receding  from  the  positions 

taken  on  the  slavery  question;  and  (3)  no  cessation  of  military  opera- 
tions on  the  part  of  the  Government  till  the  hostile  forces  surrendered 
and  disbanded.  What  the  commissioners  sought  they  did  not  get — an 
armistice  and  recognition.  What  the  President  sought  he  did  not  ob- 
tain—immediate submission.  When  the  fact  that  the  conference 
had  occurred  became  known  there  was  a  greater  display  of  passion- 
ate feeling  on  the  part  of  the  radical  Republicans  than  the  occasion 
warranted.  There  was  no  public  expression  of  disapproval  in  Con- 


FRANCIS    P.    BLAIR. 


178  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

gress,  but  many  of  the  Republicans  were  furious,  and  one-third  of  the 
Republican  members  of  the  House  refused  to  vote  for  a  resolution  of 
thanks  to  the  President,  offered  by  Mr.  Cox.  The  dissidents  included 
Thaddeus  Stevens,  of  Pennsylvania;  Henry  Winter  Davis  and  Francis 
Thomas,  of  Maryland;  Morrill,  of  Vermont;  Dawes,  of  Massachusetts; 
Windom,  of  Minnesota;  Allison,  of  Iowa,  and  Wads  worth,  of  Ken- 
tucky. Two  Democrats — Long,  of  Ohio,  and  Rogers,  of  New  Jersey- 
voted  against  it.  The  resolution,  emanating  from  a  man  who  needed 
it  as  a  justification  for  voting  against  the  Thirteenth  Amendment, 
was  in  the  nature  of  an  impertinence,  but  it  was  unnecessary  to  rebuke 
the  President  by  seeking  to  rebuke  its  ingenious  author.  Mr.  Cox's 
resolution  was  offered  on  the  6th  of  February,  and  two  days  later  Mr. 
Stevens  introduced  a  resolution  of  inquiry  which  the  House  adopted. 
To  this  the  President  made  a  full  and  frank  reply,  but  the  subject  con- 
tinued to  disturb  Congress  until  the  time  came  for  its  adjournment. 
Extreme  men  like  James  Brooks,  of  New  York,  continued  to  demand 
an  armistice  until  General  Grant  secured  one,  that  was  alike  accept- 
able to  Democrats  and  Republicans,  at  Appomattox. 

Mr.  Blair's  visit  to  Richmond  and  the  Hampton  Roads  conference 
bear  some  of  the  earmarks  of  Mr.  Seward's  peculiar  diplomacy.  There 
was  a  recurrence  to  the  idea  of  a  foreign  war  as  a  bond  of  reunion. 
By  driving  the  French  from  Mexico  a  new  empire  south  of  the  Rio 
Grande  could  be  acquired.  Whether  it  was  to  be  free  or  slave,  fed- 
eral or  independent,  were  questions  that  were  left  in  that  nebulous 
state  of  uncertainty  that  was  Mr.  Seward's  delight.  As  regards  this 
proposition,  the  words  were  Blair's,  but  the  voice  was  Seward's.  It 
was  from  Mr.  Seward  that  the  Confederate  Commissioners  first  heard 
of  the  passage  of  the  Thirteenth  Amendment,  and  their  reports  repre- 
sent the  Secretary  of  State  as  saying  that  if  the  rebellious  States 
would  submit,  and  agree  to  immediate  restoration,  its  ratification 
might  still  be  defeated.  It  was  inevitable  that  Mr.  Lincoln's  name 
should  be  connected  with  Mr.  Blair's  wild  project  in  the  rumors  that 
were  in  the  air  in  Washington,  but  it  is  not  impossible  that  the  thirty- 
one  Republicans  in  the  House  who  voted  against  Mr.  Cox's  resolution 
had  a  vague  knowledge  of  a  fact  calculated  to  dissatisfy  them  with 
the  President.  Immediately  after  his  return  from  Hampton  Roads 
Mr.  Lincoln  drafted  a  plan  of  conciliation  that  he  thought  practicable. 
It  was  for  a  grant  of  $400,000,000,  to  be  distributed  among  the  Slave 
States  as  the  price  of  submission  without  slaver}7.  This  plan  wyas  sub- 
mitted to  the  Cabinet,  but  it  was  unanimously  disapproved.  "  You 
are  all  opposed  to  me,"  said  the  President,  pathetically,  and  the  mat- 
ter was  dropped.  Just  one  month  later  Mr.  Lincoln  was  inaugurated 
President  of  the  United  States  for  the  second  time. 


PEACE. 


179 


When  the  two  Houses  met  in  joint  convention  on  the  8th  of  Febru- 
ary to  count  the  electoral  vote  the  chair  announced  the  possession  of 
returns  from  the  two  States  of  Tennessee  and  Louisiana,  but  that  in 
obedience  to  the  law  of  the  land  they  wrould  not  be  presented.  No 
member  asked  to  have  these  returns  received,  and  the  votes  of  the  two 
States  were  not  counted.  The  inaugural  ceremonies  differed  from 
similar  pageantries  before  them  only  in  these  respects — that  for  the 
first  time  the  enslaved  race  had  a  share  in  the  civic  rejoicings,  and 
that  a  battalion  of  colored  troops  marched  in  the  parade.  The  oath 
of  office  was  administered  by  Chief  Justice  Chase.  Mr.  Lincoln's  ad- 
dress was  very  brief,  but  it  has  taken  its  place  among  the  political 

classics  of  which  he  was  the 
author.  The  concluding  para- 
graph is  especially  celebrated. 
"  With  malice  toward  none,"  the 
President  said;  "with  charity 
for  all;  with  firmness  in  the 
right,  as  God  gives  us  to  see  the 
right,  let  us  strive  on  to  finish 
the  work  wre  are  in;  to  bind  up 
the  nation's  wounds;  to  care  for 
him  who  shall  have  borne  the 
battle  and  for  his  widow  and  his 
orphan — to  do  all  which  may 
achieve  and  cherish  a  just  and  a 
lasting  peace  among  ourselves, 
and  with  all  nations." 

At  the  time  when  the  38th 
Congress  was  dissolved,  and 
President  Lincoln  took  up  the 
duties  of  his  office  for  his 
second  term,  peace  was  nearer 

than  even  the  most  sanguine  dared  to  hope.  There  was  only  one 
way  to  bring  pacification — that  was  to  conquer  it.  Upon  this  method 
of  pacification  General  Grant  was  bending  all  the  energies  of  the 
armies  under  his  command.  Sherman  had  made  his  great  march 
to  the  sea.  Sheridan  was  scouring  the  valley  of  Virginia  from  Win- 
chester to  the  James,  there  to  rejoin  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  in 
time  for  the  closing  campaign.  Lee  was  meditating  the  necessity  of 
withdrawing  from  Richmond,  while  Grant  was  slowly  pushing  his  for- 
midable left  wing  nearer  to  the  only  roads  by  which  Lee  could  escape. 
An  armistice  was  the  last  hope  of  the  Confederacy,  and  even  after  an 
armistice  was  refused  by  the  authorities  at  Washington  it  was  sought 


GEN.   W.    T.    SHERMAN. 


189  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

at  the  headquarters  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac.  The  Confederate 
Congress  on  the  19th  of  January  made  Lee  General-in-Chief,  investing 
him  with  dictatorial  powers,  and  the  belief  was  cherished  at  Rich- 
mond that  Grant  possessed  like  powers.  Long-street  and  Ord  met  un- 
der a  flag  of  truce  in  February,  and  the  conversation  turned  upon  a 
possible  adjustment  of  the  terms  of  peace.  Longstreet  must  have  mis- 
understood Ord,  for  Lee  wrote  to  Grant  that  he  had  been  informed 
that  General  Ord  had  said  that  General  Grant  would  not  decline  an 
interview  with  a  view  u  to  a  satisfactory  settlement  of  the  present  un- 
happy difficulties  by  means  of  a  military  convention,"  if  Lee  had 
authority  to  act.  Lee  assured  Grant  that  he  had  the  necessary  au- 
thority, and  asked  for  the  military  convention.  Grant  telegraphed 
these  overtures  to  Washington,  but  Lincoln,  without  a  moment's 
hesitation,  answered:  "  You  are  not  to  decide,  discuss,  or  confer  upon 
any  political  questions.  Such  questions  the  President  holds  in  his 
own  hands,  and  will  submit  them  to  no  military  conferences  or  con- 
ventions. Meanwhile  you  are  to  press  to  the  utmost  your  military 
advantages."  There  was  no  military  convention,  but  Grant  pressed 
his  military  advantages  to  a  glorious  conclusion. 

The  purport  of  Ord's  conversation  with  Longstreet  has  never  been 
explained.  It  is  certain,  however,  that  in  the  closing  days  of  the  war 
there  was  a  military  conspiracy  to  subvert  in  some  way  the  authority 
of  the  civil  power  in  making  peace.  It  was,  of  course,  a  Democratic 
conspiracy — a  conspiracy  of  Democratic  generals.  To  the  existence 
of  this  conspiracy  it  is  possible,  perhaps,  to  trace  Lee's  apparent  op- 
timism after  his  fortunes  had  become  desperate.  Although  he  fore- 
saw that  he  must  abandon  Richmond,  he  still  deluded  himself  with  the 
illusion  that  he  could  save  his  army  and  continue  the  war — at  the 
worst  that  he  could  escape  unconditional  surrender.  Within  a  few 
hours  of  the  surrender  he  contended  that  surrender  wras  not  impera- 
tive. His  optimism  was  assumed,  but  that  of  the  bombastic  Beaure- 
gard  was  real.  With  the  Confederacy  tottering  Beauregard  wanted 
to  be  sent  to  crush  Sherman;  "to  give  the  enemy  battle  and  crush 
him  ";  "  then  to  concentrate  all  forces  against  Grant,  march  to  Wash- 
ington, and  dictate  a  peace."  Even  Lee  thought  it  might  still  be  pos- 
sible to  execute  such  a  program  when  it  was  no  longer  possible  for  him 
to  hold  Richmond.  He  yielded  with  dignity  at  last,  but  made  no 
pretense  that  slavery  should  be  spared  after  its  existence  had  been 
submitted  to  the  arbitrament  of  the  sword. 

Was  the  destruction  of  slavery  worth  its  cost? 

That  there  is  no  longer  a  slavery  question  is  a  sufficient  answer  to 
the  query.  The  war  was  not  inaugurated  to  destroy  slavery;  to  have 
saved  it  after  four  years  of  battle  for  the  Union  would  have  been 


PEACE. 


181 


criminal.  If  the  Union  could  have  existed  half  slave  and  half  free 
there  would  have  been  no  war  either  to  compel  or  prevent  its  exten- 
sion. The  Abolitionists  were  not  warriors.  But  the  "  irrepressible 
conflict  "  was  a  verity.  There  is  no  doubt  that  independence  was  the 
aim  of  the  Southern  leaders  from  the  beginning.  The  war  was  for  the 
Union,  and  its  perpetuity  was  worth  any  sacrifice — a  Union  without 
slavery  was  doubly  worth  fighting  for  and  worth  saving.  Both  results 
were  achieved  at  Appomattox.  The  crowning  triumph  was  as  much 
the  victory  of  the  Republican  party  as  of  the  Republic. 

The  surrender  of  Lee's  army  meant  peace.    In  the  North  there  was 
a  jubilee.     In  the  South  the  men  who  had  marched  and  battled  for 

four  long  years  threw  down  the 
musket  and  hurried  to  their 
homes  to  follow  the  plow.  For 
the  moment  reconstruction  had 
little  or  no  interest  for  the 
soldiers  on  either  side.  But  be- 
fore the  Army  of  the  Potomac 
could  return  from  Virginia  to 
Washington  to  lay  aside  the 
badges  of  the  soldier  and  as- 


ABKAHAM    LINCOLN. 


sume    the    garb  of  the  citizen, 
Abraham  Lincoln,  the  moderate, 
the  good,  the  wise,  was  stricken, 
assassinated,  dead!      He  fell  a 
martyr   to    the    cause    that    in- 
spired the  hate  of  the  assassin- 
pierced    bAT    the    bullet    of    the 
mummer    whose    last    tragedy 
part  made  him  infamous.      "  Sic 
semper  ti/raniti#,"  cried  the  mur- 
derer, and  after  speeding  the  fatal  missile  he  added,  "  The  South  is 
avenged!"    It  was  the  vengeance  of  a  madman  over  which  the  South 
still  grieves  as  well  as  the  North. 

If  Abraham  Lincoln  had  lived  to  complete  his  second  term  the 
chapters  that  follow  this  one  would  have  been  a  story  of  moderation 
and  wisdom,  gentleness  and  justice,  instead  of  the  tale  of  dissension 
and  political  bitterness  that  the  truth  of  history  compels.  The  solemn 
pageants  that  marked  the  funeral  journey  from  Washington  to 
Springfield  everywhere  attested  the  grief  of  the  people  over  a  loss  that 
stunned  them.  When  death  came  to  him  so  suddenly,  when  only  one- 
half  his  work  seemed  achieved,  all  his  great  qualities  became  the  more 
conspicuous  because  of  the  crime  that  all  the  world  regards  as  a  foul 


182  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

and  most  unnatural  murder.  When  lie  was  dead  those  who  had  op- 
posed and  even  those  who  had  jeered  at  him  united  in  lamenting-  his 
loss  and  in  the  recognition  of  his  great  qualities.  It  was  now  seen  that 
his  gentleness  had  been  matched  by  his  firmness,  his  caution  and 
discretion  by  sagacity  and  wisdom,  and  his  statecraft  by  the  noblest 
practical  results.  His  trials  and  triumphs  were  no  longer  parts  of  a 
political  problem,  but  the  history  of  a  great  career.  As  a  statesman 
his  ideals  had  been  lofty,  and  men  revered  his  memory  because  of  the 
dangers  to  himself  and  the  country  through  which  he  had  passed 
with  so  much  sweetness  and  serenity.  His  acts  and  his  speeches  were 
those  of  the  unselfish  patriot  as  well  as  of  the  publicist  and  the 
orator.  Not  only  did  his  utterances  become  classic,  but  his  address  at 
Gettysburg  and  his  closing  words  upon  the  occasion  of  his  second  in- 
auguration enshrined  themselves  in  the  hearts  of  the  people.  Those 
who  had  underestimated  him  no  longer  asserted  that  he  had  not  been 
the  head  of  his  administration,  or  that  his  administrative  acts  had 
lacked  the  qualities  of  true  statesmanship.  Even  his  enemies  praised 
him.  It  was  the  apotheosis  of  a  life-work  that,  like  Washington's,  was 
destined  to  grow  more  brilliant  and  hallowed  with  the  passing  years. 
Nearly  all  the  men  who  knew  him,  whether  or  not  they  agreed  with 
him  in  politics,  have  written  tributes  to  his  memory,  and  it  would  be 
as  fruitless  as  it  is  unnecessary  to  attempt  to  add  to  them  here. 

It  has  been  claimed  that  if  Abraham  Lincoln  had  lived  the  restora- 
tion of  the  States,  lately  in  rebellion,  to  their  places  in  the  Union 
would  have  been  accomplished  more  speedily,  and  with  less  friction, 
than  wras  the  case  under  his  successor.  This  may  be  conceded,  but  the 
subject  has  only  a  speculative  interest.  There  certainly  would  have 
been  no  breach  between  the  Executive  and  Congress.  Mr.  Lincoln 
would  have  entered  upon  the  work  of  Reconstruction  with  a  more  com- 
manding authority  over  both  sections  of  the  country  than  President 
Johnson  was  able  to  exercise.  His  prudence  and  his  self-repression 
would  have  served  to  allay  passions  that  Johnson's  bumptious  and 
aggressive  methods  excited  to  fever  heat.  His  appeals  would  have 
been  made  to  the  conscience  and  the  convictions  of  the  people,  and 
he  wTould  have  succeeded  in  having  his  own  way  through  his  willing- 
ness to  learn  the  ways  of  others,  his  moderation  in  pressing  his  own 
views  upon  the  Cabinet  and  upon  Congress,  and  the  quiet  but  force- 
ful influence  that  was  always  assured  to  him  through  his  patience 
and  forbearance.  It  is  true  his  apparent  plan  of  restoration  did  not 
become  the  policy  of  the  Republican  party,  but  what  was  impossible 
with  Lincoln  dead  would  have  been  possible,  if  not  easj- ,  with  Lincoln 
living. 

Throughout  the  war  Mr.  Lincoln  pursued  a  tentative  policy  of  Re- 


PEACE.  183 

construction.  His  first  attempts  were  made  in  Tennessee  and  Louis- 
iana, but  as  a  restoration  of  the  civil  authority  in  these  States  at  the 
time  was  impracticable,  a  resort  to  military  government  became 
necessary  in  both.  In  1862  Andrew  Johnson  was  appointed  Military 
Governor  of  Tennessee,  and  General  George  F.  Shepley  was  invested 
with  similar  authority  in  Louisiana.  This  was  not  reconstruction, 
for  that  could  only  consist  in  the  restoration  of  the  civil  authority. 
A  step  in  this  direction  was  made  in  Louisiana  in  December,  1802, 
wrhen  Governor  Shepley  ordered  an  election  for  two  members  of  Con- 
gress. Benjamin  F.  Flanders  and  Michael  Halm  were  elected,  and 
were  admitted  to  seats  in  the  37th  Congress,  February  9,  1863.  This 
action  was  not  only  premature,  but  it  was  useless,  and  in  the  end  it 
was  mischievous,  for  it  encouraged  Louisiana  to  establish  a  State 
Government  before  Congress  had  adopted  a  settled  policy  of  restora- 
tion. The  plan  met  with  the  approbation  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  it  was 
carried  out  in  accordance  with  the  recommendation  in  his  message 
to  Congress,  December  8,  1863,  and  the  terms  of  a  proclamation  that 
accompanied  the  message.  The  weakness  of  the  scheme  consisted  in 
the  fact  that  the  State  Government  thus  created  could  not  last  an 
hour  without  military  support.  Arkansas  followed  the  example  of 
Louisiana,  and  Messrs.  Fishback  and  Baxter  were  elected  to  the 
United  States  Senate.  When  they  presented  their  credentials  their 
application  was  met  by  a  resolution,  offered  by  Mr.  Sumner,  declaring 
that  "  a  State  pretending  to  secede  from  the  Union,  and  battling 
against  the  General  Government  to  maintain  that  position,  must  be 
regarded  as  a  rebel  State  subject  to  military  occupation,  and  without 
representation  on  this  floor  until  it  has  been  readmitted  by  a  vote  of 
both  Houses  of  Congress;  and  the  Senate  will  decline  to  entertain  any 
such  application  from  any  such  rebel  State  until  after  such  a  vote  of 
both  Houses."  The  Senate  was  unwilling  to  be  as  emphatic  as  Mr. 
Sumner  desired,  but  it  finally  declared  that  "  the  rebellion  is  not  so 
far  suppressed  in  Arkansas  as  to  entitle  that  State  to  representation 
in  Congress;  and  therefore  Messrs.  Fishback  and  Baxter  are  not  en- 
titled to  admission  as  Senators."  The  House  took  similar  action  in 
regard  to  the  Representatives  elected  from  Arkansas. 

This  disagreement  between  the  President  and  Congress  reached 
the  stage  of  a  positive  conflict  later  when  Congress  passed  a  bill  em- 
bodying its  own  views  of  reconstruction.  The  passage  of  this  bill 
could  be  regarded  in  no  other  light  than  as  a  rebuke  to  the  President 
for  proceeding  with  the  wrork  of  restoration  without  waiting  for  the 
action  of  Congress.  It  was  claimed  by  the  more  radical  Republicans 
in  both  Houses  that  the  President  had  exceeded  his  constitutional 
power,  but  this  assumption  was  unfair  because  it  was  not  true.  The 


184  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

President  still  maintained  the  principle  with  which  the  war  was  be- 
gun— once  a  State  always  a  State — while  Congress  was  tending 
toward  Mr.  Simmer's  position  that  the  States  in  rebellion  had  re- 
verted to  a  territorial  condition.  It  soon  became  apparent  that  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  not  in  a  humor  to  be  rebuked  by  Congress.  He  allowed 
the  bill  to  die  by  withholding  his  approval,  and  four  days  after  the 
close  of  the  session  he  issued  a  proclamation  in  which  he  treated  the 
measure  as  merely  an  expression  of  opinion  by  Congress  as  to  the  best 
plan  of  Reconstruction.  It  was  in  response  to  this  proclamation  that 
the  famous  Wade-Davis  "  protest  "  was  published  during  the  Presi- 
dential campaign  of  1864. 

In  his  last  annual  message  to  Congress  Mr.  Lincoln  made  no  allu- 
sion to  Reconstruction,  and  Congress  took  action  in  only  one  instance 
that  in  any  way  affected  the  principle  involved  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  plan. 
This  action  was  the  passage  of  a  resolution  directing  that  there  should 
be  no  count  of  the  electoral  vote  of  the  States  of  Louisiana  and 
Arkansas.  This  resolution  was  sent  to  the  President  for  his  approval. 
He  signed  and  returned  it  with  a  sarcastic  message  in  which  he  said 
the  two  Houses  of  Congress  convened  under  the  twelfth  article  of  the 
Constitution  "  have  complete  powrer  to  exclude  from  counting  all 
electoral  votes  deemed  by  them  to  be  illegal,  and  it  was  not  compe- 
tent for  the  Executive  to  defeat  or  obstruct  the  power  by  a  veto,  as 
would  be  the  case  if  his  action  were  at  all  essential  to  the  matter  "; 
and  he  added  that  he  disclaimed  all  right  on  the  part  of  the  Executive 
to  interfere  in  any  way  in  the  matter  of  canvassing  or  counting  the 
electoral  votes,  and  he  also  "  disclaims  that  by  signing  said  resolu- 
tion he  has  expressed  any  opinion  on  the  recital  of  the  preamble  or 
any  judgment  of  his  own  upon  the  subject  of  the  resolution."  This 
was  telling  Congress  in  effect  that  if  he  had  signed  the  resolution 
without  explanation  it  would  have  implied  his  right  to  veto  it;  if  it 
had  been  sent  to  him  as  a  reflection  on  his  reconstruction  policy,  Con- 
gress might  have  saved  itself  the  trouble. 

That  Mr.  Lincoln  had  not  abandoned  his  own  plan  of  Reconstruc- 
tion is  evident  from  the  last  speech  made  by  him  two  days  after  the 
surrender  at  Appomattox.  "  It  may  be  my  duty,"  he  said,  "  to  make 
some  new  announcement  to  the  people  of  the  South.  I  am  considering 
and  shall  not  fail  to  act  when  satisfied  that  action  will  be  proper." 

The  "  new  announcement  "  was  never  made. 

The  cry  of  the  assassin — "  the  South  is  avenged  "  —interposed  to 
prevent  the  contemplated  message  of  a  broad  and  liberal  policy  with 
peace  and  union. 


III. 

PRESIDENT  JOHNSON'S   POLICY. 

Installation  of  Andrew  Johnson — His  Characteristics — Intimations 
of  a  Kigorous  Policy — Proclamation  of  Amnesty  and  Pardon— 
The  Wounded  Seward  and  Preston  King — Seward's  Speedy  Re- 
covery and  Remarkable  Energy — He  Dominates  the  President— 
Seward  and  Johnson's  Plan  of  Restoration — Provisional  Gov- 
ernors— Governor  Holden  of  North  Carolina — Judge  Sharkey  of 
Mississippi — The  Reorganization  of  the  Southern  States — They 
Accept  the  Terms,  but  Disregard  Them — Legislation  Hostile  to 
the  Negroes — Course  Pursued  in  Mississippi,  Georgia,  Alabama, 
Texas,  South  Carolina,  and  Florida — The  Two  Virginias — Crea- 
tion of  the  State  of  West  Virginia — Joint  Committee  on  Recon- 
struction— Failure  of  the  Lincoln  Plan  of  Restoration — Attempts 
to  Re-enslave  the  Blacks — Secretary  Seward's  Disappointment. 

HILE  the  death  of  Abraham  Lincoln  was  still  unknown  to 
the  greater  part  of  the  American  people,  Andrew  Johnson 
took  the  oath  of  office  as  his  successor.  Since  his  inaugura- 
tion as  Vice-President  he  had  remained  in  Washington, 
and  so  there  wras  no  interruption  of  the  Executive  authority.  The 
ceremony  took  place  at  his  lodgings  at  the  Kirkwood  Hotel,  where 
the  oath  was  administered  by  Chief  Justice  Chase  in  the  presence  of 
the  members  of  the  Cabinet  and  a  few  of  the  Senators  who  had  lin- 
gered in  Washington  after  the  adjournment  of  the  Senate.  The  change 
was  one  for  which  the  country  was  not  prepared,  and  it  was  disquiet- 
ing, if  not  appalling.  There  was  an  instinctive  feeling  that  Johnson's 
nomination  and  election  had  been  a  grave  political  blunder.  He  was 
not  the  man  that  either  the  North  or  the  South  would  have  chosen  for 
the  emergency  that  now  confronted  him  and  the  Republic.  Northern 
men  distrusted  and  Southern  men  hated  and  despised  him.  The 
qualities  that  had  made  him  a  good  candidate  were  almost  certain  to 
make  him  a  bad  President.  By  birth  and  by  education,  by  tempera- 
ment and  by  environment,  he  was  peculiarly  unsuited  to  the  responsi- 
bilities he  was  called  upon  to  assume.  It  was  not  so  much  that  he 
belonged  to  the  "  poor  white  "  class  by  birth,  as  that  he  was  the 
leader  of  that  class  in  the  South,  that  made  him  distasteful  to  the 
Southern  aristocracy,  whether  he  attempted  to  administer  either  jus- 
tice or  mercv  in  the  hour  of  defeat  and  humiliation.  As  a  Democrat 


186  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

he  had  always  been  a  fly  in  the  ointment  of  Southern  Democrats.  He 
was  by  instinct  a  fit  representative  of  the  class  to  which  he  was  allied 
by  birth,  the  white  workingman.  His  political  career  before  the  war 
had  been  exceptionally  successful  by  the  aid  of  the  working-men  of 
his  own  State.  He  was  the  champion  of  white  labor  in  the  Tennessee 
Legislature  and  in  Congress,  his  arguments  tending  to  antagonize 
the  slave  system,  to  which  he  gave  a  perfunctory  support.  His  es- 
pousal of  the  Homestead  policy  was  especially  offensive  to  the  South- 
ern leaders.  There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  his  independent  course 
in  both  Houses  of  Congress  was  as  sincere  and  honest  as  it  was  brave 
and  courageous.  As  a  Union  man  he  was  inflexible  at  a  time  when 
inflexibility  for  the  Union  marked  him  for  the  violent  hatred  of  his 
own  section.  In  the  hour  of  secession  he  stood  alone  in  the  Senate — 
the  only  Senator  from  a  seceding  State  who  remained  loyal  to  the 
Union.  His  firm  discharge  of  his  duty  as  Military  Governor  of  Ten- 
nessee, afterward,  made  him  exceedingly  popular  in  the  loyal  States, 
but  as  much  an  object  of  obloquy  and  detestation  in  the  South  as 
General  Butler.  It  was  regarded  as  futile  to  expect  clemency  from 
a  man  of  his  antecedents,  and  it  was  known  that  he  had  protested  to 
President  Lincoln,  the  day  after  Lee's  surrender,  against  the  terms 
accorded  by  General  Grant.  With  such  a  career  behind  him,  and 
with  a  firm  belief  in  a  policy  of  rigor  at  the  hour  of  triumph,  he  was 
suddenly  exalted  to  the  office  that  had  been  filled  by  Lincoln  with 
rare  tact  and  discretion,  and  while  the  dead  President  still  lay  in  the 
White  House  he  announced  that  his  policy  was  not  to  be  one  of  mercy. 
In  a  speech  to  a  delegation  of  distinguished  citizens  from  Illinois,  on 
the  18th  of  April,  he  intimated  that  Mr.  Lincoln's  policy  was  to  be  his 
policy,  but  when  Lincoln's  neighbors  and  friends  were  gone  he  struck 
out  the  intimation  from  the  stenographer's  report.  It  was  not  in  har- 
mony with  what  he  had  said  in  another  part  of  his  address  and  with 
what  he  felt. 

"  When  the  question  of  exercising  mercy  comes  before  me,"  Mr. 
Johnson  remarked  to  his  Illinois  visitors,  "  it  will  be  considered 
calmly,  judicially — remembering  that  I  am  the  Executive  of  the  Na- 
tion. I  know  men  love  to  have  their  names  spoken  in  connection  with 
acts  of  mercy,  and  how  easy  it  is  to  yield  to  that  impulse.  But  we 
must  never  forget  that  what  may  be  mercy  to  the  individual  is  cruelty 
to  the  State." 

Mr.  Johnson's  early  utterances,  coming  from  a  man  in  his  position, 
were  singularly  unhappy.  The  effect  of  the  first  speech  after  he  be- 
came President  wras  detrimental  to  the  administration  and  to  the 
country.  It  gave  no  assurance  of  what  his  policy  would  be,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  openly  evaded  it.  There  were  no  words  of  grief  or 


PRESIDENT  JOHNSON'S   POLICY.  187 

praise  for  the  dead  President,  beyond  the  declaration  that  he  was  "  al- 
most overwhelmed  by  the  announcement  of  the  sad  event  which  has 
so  recently  occurred."  The  speech,  which  was  a  very  brief  one, 
abounded  with  allusions  to  himself  and  his  career.  "  Toil  and  an 
honest  advocacy  of  the  great  principles  of  free  government  have  been 
my  lot,"  he  said.  "  The  duties  have  been  mine,  the  consequences 
God's."  The  effect  of- such  utterances  at  such  a  time  could  not  fail  to 
be  hurtful.  "  Johnson  seemed  willing  to  share  the  glory  of  his 
achievements  with  his  Creator,"  said  John  P.  Hale,  with  bitter  wit, 
"  but  utterly  forgot  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  any  share  of  credit  for  the 
suppression  of  the  Rebellion." 

While  the  funeral  cortege  was  slowly  bearing  Mr.  Lincoln's  re- 
mains to  their  last  resting  place,  the  people  everywhere  attesting  their 
grief  for  the  dead  President,  the  inflexible  sternness  of  Mr.  Johnson's 
utterances  received  frequent  iteration.  To  members  of  the  Christian 
Commission,  who  called  upon  him  under  the  same  roof  where  the  body 
of  the  dead  President  reposed,  he  talked  of  "  erecting  a  standard  by 
which  everybody  should  be  taught  to  believe  that  treason  is  the 
highest  crime  known  to  the  laws,  and  that  the  perpetrator  should  be 
visited  with  the  punishment  which  he  deserves."  This  was  in  reply 
to  the  Rev.  Dr.  Borden,  of  Albany,  who  expressed  the  hope  that  justice 
might  be  tempered  with  mercy.  "  I  have  become  satisfied  that  mercy 
without  justice  is  a  crime,  and  that  when  mercy  and  clemency  are 
exercised  by  the  Executive  it  should  always  be  done  in  view  of 
justice,"  he  said  to  a  delegation  of  loyal  Southerners,  a  day  or  two 
later.  "  But  I  say  treason  is  a  crime,  the  very  highest  crime  known 
to  the  law,"  he  exclaimed  to  a  delegation  of  Pennsylvanians,  headed 
by  Simon  Cameron,  "  and  there  are  men  who  ought  to  suffer  the  pen- 
alty of  their  treason  !  ...  To  the  unconscious,  the  deceived,  the 
conscripted,  in  short,  to  the  great  mass  of  the  misled,  I  would  say 
mercy,  clemency,  reconciliation,  and  the  restoration  of  their  govern- 
ment. But  to  those  who  have  deceived,  to  the  conscious,  intelligent, 
influential  traitor  who  attempted  to  destroy  the  life  of  a  nation,  I 
would  say,  on  you  be  inflicted  the  severest  penalties  of  your  crime." 

This  truculent  mood  continued  for  several  weeks.  "  Well,  Mr. 
Wade,  what  would  you  do  if  you  were  in  my  place  and  charged  with 
my  responsibilities?  "  he  asked  of  the  bluff  and  not  too  tender  Senator 
from  Ohio,  regarding  him  as  over-merciful.  "  I  think,"  was  the  an- 
swer, "  I  should  either  force  into  exile  or  hang  about  ten  or  twelve  of 
the  worst  of  those  fellows — perhaps  by  way  of  full  measure  I  should 
make  it  thirteen,  a  baker's  dozen."  The  mild  thought  was  appalling 
to  the  ferocious  Johnson.  "  But  how,"  he  asked,  "  are  you  going  to 
pick  out  so  small  a  number  and  show  them  to  be  guiltier  than  the 
rest?" 


188  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

In  all  these  utterances  affecting  treason  and  traitors  there  were  no 
allusions  to  any  plan  of  restoration,  and  it  was  not  until  the  29th  of 
May  that  the  first  of  the  important  measures  in  his  policy  of  Recon- 
struction was  announced.  This  was  his  Proclamation  of  Amnesty 
and  Pardon.  In  this  the  roaring  lion  had  become  a  cooing  dove.  It 
is  true  there  was  a  formidable  looking  list  of  exceptions — thirteen 
classes  in  all.  The  excepted  classes  were  (1)  all  diplomatic  officers 
and  foreign  agents  of  the  Confederate  Government;  (2)  all  who  left 
judicial  stations  under  the  United  States  to  aid  the  rebellion;  (3)  all 
military  and  naval  officers  of  the  Confederacy  above  the  rank  of 
colonel  in  the  army  and  lieutenant  in  the  navy;  (4)  all  who  left  seats 
in  Congress  to  join  the  rebellion;  (5)  all  who  resigned  or  offered  to  re- 
sign from  the  army  and  navy  to  evade  duty  in  resisting  the  rebellion; 
(6)  all  who  were  engaged  in  treating  otherwise  than  as  lawful  prisoners 
of  war  persons  found  in  the  United  States  service  as  officers,  soldiers, 
or  seamen;  (7)  all  persons  who  were  or  had  been  absentees  from  the 
United  States  for  the  purpose  of  aiding  the  rebellion;  (8)  all  gradu- 
ates of  the  Military  or  Naval  Academy;  (9)  officers  of  the  States  in 
insurrection;  (10)  all  who  passed  beyond  the  Federal  military  lines 
for  the  purpose  of  aiding  the  rebellion;  (11)  all  persons  engaged  in  the 
destruction  of  the  commerce  of  the  United  States  upon  the  high  seas, 
lakes,  and  rivers;  (12)  all  persons  held  in  military,  naval,  or  civil  con- 
finement; and  (13)  all  persons  engaged  in  the  rebellion  the  estimated 
value  of  whose  property  was  over  $20,000.  The  Proclamation  con- 
tained a  proviso  that  "  special  application  may  be  made  to  the  Presi- 
dent for  pardon  by  any  person  belonging  to  the  excepted  classes,"  and 
the  assurance  was  added  that  "  such  clemency  will  be  liberally  ex- 
tended as  may  be  consistent  with  the  facts  of  the  case  and  the  peace 
and  dignity  of  the  United  States." 

This  complete  reversal  of  the  sanguinary  policy  of  the  President 
was  due  to  the  influence  and  advice  of  the  moderate  and  astute  Secre- 
tary of  State.  Almost  at  the  same  moment  that  the  assassin,  Booth, 
was  firing  the  fatal  shot  from  the  stage  of  Ford's  Theater  that  killed 
President  Lincoln,  his  fellow  conspirator,  Payne,  was  dealing  Secre- 
tary Seward  a  wound  that  it  was  feared  would  be  mortal.  The  shock 
to  his  nervous  system  was  so  great  that  for  days  he  was  not  permitted 
to  learn  the  fate  of  the  President,  or  even  that  his  son,  Frederick 
Seward,  had  been  desperately  wounded  by  one  of  the  conspirators. 
To  the  surprise  and  joy  of  the  country  Secretary  Seward  rallied  quick- 
ly and  recovered  speedily.  Wounded  on  the  night  of  the  14th  of  April, 
he  was  well  enough  by  the  first  of  May  to  be  informed  of  the  events 
of  which  he  was  one  of  the  victims;  on  the  10th  he  was  able  to  receive 
visits  from  President  Johnson  and  members  of  the  Cabinet;  and  on  the 


PRESIDENT  JOHNSON'S   POLICY.  189 

20th  he  was  back  at  his  desk  in  the  State  Department.  In  the  interval 
Preston  King,  who  had  been  displaced  in  the  Senate  two  years  before 
by  Governor  Edwin  D.  Morgan,  had  had  the  ear  of  the  President. 
King  was  a  man  well  adapted  to  secure  the  confidence  of  Johnson. 
Like  Johnson,  he  had  been  a  Democrat  before  he  became  a  Republican. 
Like  Johnson,  he  had  no  sympathy  wTith  the  Whigs  of  whom  Seward 
was  representative.  Between  King  and  Seward  there  was  not  only 
no  comity  of  interest,  but  much  bitterness  of  feeling.  King  blamed 
Seward  and  his  lieutenant,  Weed,  for  his  failure  to  be  returned  to 
the  Senate  in  1863.  Now  he  was  waiting  for  his  revenge  by  becoming 
Secretary  of  State  in  Seward's  stead.  It  was  King  who  advised  John- 
son to  strike  the  allusion  to  Lincoln's  policy  from  the  speech  to  the 
Illinois  delegation.  If  Seward's  recovery  had  been  slower,  or  if  the 
Secretary  had  risen  from  his  bed  enfeebled  in  mind  as  well  as  shat- 
tered in  body,  Preston  King  would  have  been  his  successor  in  the 
State  Department.  He  afterward  accepted  the  post  of  Collector  of  the 
Port  of  New  York,  but,  grievously  disappointed,  he  died  by  his  own 
hand. 

Mr.  Seward,  in  May,  1865,  found  himself  in  exactly  the  same  atti- 
tude toward  President  Johnson  that  he  had  occupied  toward  Presi- 
dent Lincoln  in  March,  1861.  The  chance  had  again  come  to  him  to 
"  direct  affairs  for  the  benefit  of  the  nation  through  the  name  of  an- 
other," and  he  nerved  himself  to  embrace  the  opportunity  with  a 
resolution  and  energy  that  were  almost  superhuman.  Four  years  of 
war  had  not  rendered  his  methods  of  bringing  the  seceded  States  back 
to  their  duty  obsolete  in  his  own  mind,  and  the  same  means  remained 
ready  to  his  hand  for  reuniting  the  American  people  in  a  common 
bond  of  nationality* — a  foreign  war.  His  first  day  at  the  State  Depart- 
ment was  devoted  to  a  long  conference  with  the  French  Minister 
touching  the  imperial  regime  in  Mexico.  From  that  hour  Maximil- 
ian's empire  was  doomed.  His  idea  of  Reconstruction  was  that  the 
best  way  was  the  speediest.  He  believed  in  vigor,  but  not  in  the  rigor 
that  had  been  the  sanguinary  feature  of  President  Johnson's  speeches 
while  he  lay  pale,  emaciated,  and,  it  was  believed,  dying  on  the  bed 
on  which  the  assassin  had  prostrated  him.  Like  Lincoln,  he  did  not 
regard  revenge  as  a  just  motive  for  political  action.  In  his  view  the 
only  guaranty  of  the  rehabilitated  citizen  was  an  oath  of  renewed 
loyalty.  He  was  in  favor  of  trusting  the  South  fully,  and  he  was 
eager  for  a  restored  Union,  without  any  unnecessary  delay.  This 
would  probably  have  been  the  policy  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  As  Lin- 
coln's policy  it  would  have  been  feasible,  for  he  would  have  spoken 
with  an  authority  that  was  denied  to  Seward,  and  that  was  certain 
to  be  acrimoniously  withheld  from  Johnson.  If  Seward  and  Johnson 


190  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

had  called  Congress  together  and  taken  counsel  with  the  Republican 
leaders,  their  success  would  not  have  been  assured,  perhaps,  but  the 
worst  blunders  of  Johnson's  administration  would  have  been  avoided. 
Neither  the  President  nor  his  great  Secretary  thought  this  necessary, 
and  in  avoiding  Scylla  their  bark  was  dashed  upon  Charybdis. 

In  his  debilitated  state  and  the  visionary  eagerness  and  confidence 
that  are  apt  to  inspire  a  man  who  has  just  emerged  from  a  severe 
illness,  Mr.  Seward  yielded  to  the  fascination  of  bending  the  Presi- 
dent to  his  will,  believing  that  if  he  could  dominate  Johnson  he  could 
rule  the  country.  The  task  that  he  thus  set  for  himself  was  no  easy 
one.  lie  had  attempted  it  four  years  before  with  Lincoln,  and  had 
failed  utterly.  What  he  then  thought  easy  he  had  found  impossible. 
What  most  men  would  have  regarded  as  impossible  he  now  easily 
accomplished.  Seward  and  Johnson  were  political  antipodes,  with- 
out a  single  point  of  contact  or  sympathy  in  their  motives  or  ideas. 
The  Secretary  of  State  was  a  Whig,  and  the  Whigs  were  Johnson's 
detestation.  The  President  was  a  Democrat  of  the  Jackson  school, 
but  to  Seward  Jackson  was  as  detestable  as  he  had  been  to  John 
Quincy  Adams.  Personally  as  well  as  politically  the  two  men  were 
far  apart.  Johnson  entertained  a  prejudice  against  Seward  that 
amounted  to  dislike.  In  spite  of  his  position  Senator  Johnson  was 
looked  upon  with  something  like  disdain  by  men  like  Senator  Seward. 
Conventional  imputations  carry  great  wreight,  even  with  popular  lead- 
ers. Seward  was  an  aristocrat  in  manners  and  feeling.  Johnson  was 
a  democrat  as  well  as  a  Democrat.  These  differences  only  added  to 
Seward's  fascination  in  the  work  of  molding  Johnson  to  his  will- 
indeed,  they  made  Johnson  more  manageable  than  wrould  have  been 
a  Nature's  Nobleman  like  Lincoln.  To  be  appealed  to  by  a  man  of 
the  prestige  and  pre-eminence  of  Seward  was  a  flattery  of  a  kind  to 
which  the  coarser  fiber  of  Johnson's  nature  gave  a  ready  response. 
Besides,  Seward  was  at  once  the  most  deferential  as  well  as  the  most 
eloquent  of  talkers.  He  was  a  good  listener.  He  never  understated 
the  points  of  an  antagonist  in  a  private  discussion,  but  restated  them 
in  language  so  glowing  that  to  yield  the  argument  to  such  an  op- 
ponent became  magnanimity.  Seward  talked  Johnson  into  his  way  of 
thinking  by  his  eloquence,  his  ardor,  and  his  picturesque  view  of  the 
possibilities  that  awaited  an  administration  that  restored  the  Union 
quickly  and  triumphantly.  The  President  became  plastic  in  the  hands 
of  the  Secretary  of  State.  In  the  matter  of  the  Amnesty  Proclamation 
Johnson  yielded  to  Seward's  milder  views  on  every  point  except  one- 
he  insisted  on  making  wealth  in  the  South  a  disqualification  for  cit- 
izenship without  special  pardon.  To  a  man  who  had  suffered  social 
ostracism  from  these  men  for  a  lifetime  it  was  a  peculiar  pleasure 


PRESIDENT  JOHNSON'S   POLICY.  191 

that  they  should  be  compelled  to  corne  to  him  to  sue  for  citizenship. 
But  Johnson  did  not  reverse  his  policy  of  rigor  for  Seward's  alluring 
program  from  any  feeling  of  weakness  or  dependence.  His  con- 
fidence in  his  own  powrers,  and  his  willingness  to  assume  official  re- 
sponsibility without  any  sense  of  personal  fear,  made  him  all  the  more 
amenable  to  the  master  mind  of  the  Premier.  Seward's  efforts  to 
convince  him  that  as  President  he  possessed  all  the  power  necessary 
to  the  Reconstruction  of  the  States  lately  in  rebellion  led  him  to  give 
a  ready  response  to  the  Secretary's  arguments,  and  he  pursued  the 
thorny  path  marked  out  for  him  without  flinching  when  he  was 
pricked  and  torn  by  the  way. 

On  the  same  day  that  President  Johnson  issued  his  Proclamation 
of  Amnesty  and  Pardon,   William  W.  Holdeu  was  appointed  Pro- 
visional Governor  of  North  Carolina,  with  authority  to  restore  civil 
government  in  the  State.     It  wras  made  the  duty 
of  Governor  Holden  "  at  the  earliest  practicable 
period,  to  prescribe  such  rules  and  regulations 
as  may  be  necessary  and  proper  for  assembling 
a  convention   composed   of  delegates  who  are 
loyal  to  the  United  States,  and  no  others,  for  the 
purpose  of  altering  or  amending  the  Constitu- 
tion  thereof,   and    with   authority   to   exercise, 
within  the  limit  of  the  State,  all  the  powers  nec- 
essary and  proper  to  enable  the  loyal  people  of 
the    State   of   North    Carolina   to    restore    said 
State    to    its    constitutional    relations    to    the 
Federal    Government  as  will  entitle  the  State      WILLIAM  w.  HOLDEN. 
to  the  guaranty  of  the  United  States  therefor 
and  its  people  against  invasion,  insurrections,  and  domestic  violence." 

The  appointment  of  Governor  Holden  was  quickly  followed  by 
similar  appointments  for  other  States,  William  L.  Sharkey  being- 
made  Provisional  Governor  of  Mississippi  with  like  powers  on  the 
1.3th  of  June;  James  Johnson  of  Georgia,  and  Andrew  J.  Hamilton 
of  Texas  on  the  17th;  Lewis  E.  Parsons  of  Alabama,  on  the  21st; 
Benjamin  F.  Perrj^  of  South  Carolina,  on  the  30th,  and  William 
Marvin  of  Florida,  on  the  13th  of  July.  It  will  thus  be  seen  that 
within  six  weeks  from  the  time  of  his  announcement  of  a  plan  of  Re- 
construction, President  Johnson  had  begun  to  set  the  machinery  in 
motion  for  the  restoration  of  seven  of  the  eleven  seceded  States.  The 
reconstructed  State  governments  that  had  been  formed  in  the  States 
of  Virginia,  Tennessee,  Arkansas,  and  Louisiana  were  speedily  recog- 
nized. In  consequence  of  this  speedy  action,  the  37th  Congress,  when 
it  assembled  in  December,  1865,  found  the  Union  restored  without  its 


192  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

knowledge  or  consent,  and  in  a  way  that  was  not  likely  to  meet  with 
its  approbation.  There  was  no  recognition  of  the  Provisional  Govern- 
ments set  up  by  the  President,  but  a  Joint  Committee  on  Reconstruc- 
tion was  appointed  by  the  two  Houses  on  the  13th  of  December,  and 
made  its  report,  April  30,  1866.  The  committee  consisted  of  William 
Pitt  Fessenden,  of  Maine;  James  W.  Grimes,  of  Iowa;  Ira  Harris,  of 
New  York;  Jacob  M.  Howard,  of  Michigan;  Reverdy  Johnson,  of 
Maryland;  and  George  H.  Williams,  of  Oregon,  on  the  part  of  the 
Senate;  and  Thaddeus  Stevens,  of  Pennsylvania;  Elihu  B.  Washburne, 
of  Illinois;  Justin  S.  Morrill,  of  Vermont;  Henry  Grider,  of  Kentucky; 
John  A.  Bingham,  of  Ohio;  Roscoe  Conkling,  of  New  York;  George  S. 
Bout  well,  of  Massachusetts;  Henry  T.  Blow,  of  Missouri,  and  Andrew 
J.  Rogers,  of  New  Jersey,  on  behalf  of  the  House.  As  this  report  and 
the  action  taken  upon  it  were  in  direct  antagonism  with  President 
Johnson's  policy,  its  history  will  be  told  in  the  chapter  devoted  to  the 
39th  Congress,  while  the  practical  working  of  the  Provisional  Gov- 
ernments are  here  described  in  greater  detail  than  would  be  possible 
if  the  Johnson  plan  and  the  plan  of  Congress  were  considered  to- 
gether. 

President  Johnson's  first  Provisional  Governor  was  not  a  happy 
selection  from  a  Northern  or  Southern  standpoint.  Governor  Holden 
was  a  veering  politician  whose  vane  alwa37s  pointed  to  windward. 
He  was  a  Democratic  editor  at  Raleigh  and  an  original  secessionist. 
As  early  as  1856  he  advocated  disunion  in  case  of  Fremont's  election. 
In  1860-61  he  opposed  secession,  but  was  a  member  of  the  North 
Carolina  Convention,  and  not  only  voted  for  the  Ordinance  that  car- 
ried the  State  out  of  the  Union,  but  was  especially  virulent  as  a  "  last 
dollar  "  and  "  last  man  "  blatherskite.  His  declaration  that  he  would 
keep  the  pen  with  which  he  affixed  his  name  to  the  North  Carolina 
Ordinance  as  an  heirloom  for  his  posterity  was  not  maintained  in  a 
manner  creditable  to  his  devotion  to  the  principles  he  professed.  He 
became  at  a  comparatively  early  period  a  dissatisfied  and  disaffected 
subject  of  the  Confederate  oligarchy  at  Richmond.  The  freedom  with 
which  he  criticised  Jefferson  Davis's  administration  caused  him  to  be 
looked  upon  as  an  open  enemy  of  the  Confederate  cause,  and  he  was 
subjected  to  much  persecution  and  annoyance.  His  joy  at  the  down- 
fall of  the  Confederacy  was,  no  doubt,  real.  Like  Johnson,  he  was 
sprung  from  the  poor  white  class  of  North  Carolina,  and,  like  John- 
son, he  was  at  no  time  a  favorite  with  the  aristocracy  of  the  South. 
With  such  antecedents  and  with  such  an  environment  behind  him  he 
was  an  unhappy  choice  to  guide  his  State  back  to  her  old  moorings 
in  the  Union.  Indeed,  he  gave  himself  little  trouble  about  the  re- 
habilitation of  his  State  and  the  prosperity  of  its  people.  His  chief 


PRESIDENT  JOHNSON'S    POLICY. 


193 


concern  was  to  build  up  a  party  for  President  Johnson  and  himself. 
To  this  end  he  engaged  in  the  petty  business  that  Thaddeus  Stevens 
called  "  peddling  amnesty,"  bringing  both  the  administration  and  the 
Provisional  Government  into  disrepute.  If 
General  Schofield  had  been  continued  as 
Military  Governor  of  North  Carolina  until 
Congress  could  be  called  in  extraordinary 
session  and  have  time  to  prescribe  the  con- 
ditions of  restoration,  it  can  not  be  doubted 
that  the  results  would  have  been  in  every 
way  more  gratifying.  As  it  was,  neither 
the  administration  nor  the  Governor  reaped 
any  advantage  from  the  President's  "  pol- 
icy." Even  with  the  restricted  suffrage 
Ilolden  was  beaten  as  a  candidate  for  Gov- 
ernor under  the  new  Constitution  by  a  ma- 
jority of  more  than  6,000  votes  for  Jonathan 

Worth,  a  Union  man  of  Quaker  descent,  and  the  Republican  party  was 
discredited  in  North  Carolina  from  the  outset  by  the  superserviceable 
course  of  the  Johnson  party. 

Governor  Sharkey,  of  Mississippi, 
was  an  eminent  jurist,  but  a  weak 
administrator.  It  must  be  said  in 
his  behalf,  however,  that  in  his 
State  success  was  impossible,  for 
Mississippi  rejected  all  the  condi- 
tions of  Reconstruction — even  the 
Thirteenth  Amendment.  Judge 
Sharkey  was  sent  to  the  United 
States  Senate,  but  under  the  cir- 
cumstances it  is  doubtful  if  lie 
would  have  been  admitted  even  if 
Mr.  Lincoln's  plan  of  restoration 
for  Louisiana  had  been  generally 
adopted  in  dealing  with  the  insur- 
rectionary States.  The  Mississippi 
Legislature,  chosen  in  accordance 
with  the  Johnson  policy,  went  so 
far  out  of  its  way  to  enact  objec- 
tionable laws,  affecting  the  colored 

population,  that  there  was  room  for  the  charge  made  at  the  time  that 
Mississippi  would  adopt  slavery  as  a  State  institution  as  soon  as  its 
statehood  was  recognized.  Indeed,  practically  the  old  slave  code 


WILLIAM    L.    SHARKEY. 


194  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

was  actually  re-enacted.  Thus  the  haste  to  reorganize  became  a  detri- 
ment not  only  to  the  State,  but  to  the  entire  South. 

Governor  Johnson,  of  Georgia,  was  a  man  of  less  prominence  in 
his  State  than  were  lloldeu  in  North  Carolina,  Sharkey  in  Mississippi, 
or  General  Hamilton  in  Texas,  but  he  came  nearer  to  success  than 
any  of  President  Johnson's  Provisional  Governors.  Georgia,  even 
before  the  war,  was  to  some  extent  a  manufacturing  State,  and  so 
escaped  the  dominating  influence  of  the  planter  class,  that  in  Alabama 
and  Mississippi  failed  to  learn  for  a  number  of  years  afterward  that 
the  war  for  slavery  had  abolished  it  forever.  Governor  Hamilton,  of 
Texas,  was  the  only  one  of  the  seven  Provisional  Governors  appointed 
by  the  President  who  was  under  no  delusion  in  regard  to  the  work 
for  which  he  was  appointed.  He  \vas  a  Union  man,  who  had  been 
compelled  to  flee  the  State  at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  and  he  only 
returned  with  the  other  refugees  in  1805.  "  Candor  compels  me  to 
say  to  the  people  of  Texas,"  he  said  in  his  proclamation  calling  the 
State  Convention,  "  that  in  the  action  of  the  proposed  convention,  if 
the  negro  is  characterized  or  treated  as  less  than  a  free  man,  our 
Senators  and  Representatives  will  seek  in  vain  admission  to  the  halls 
of  Congress.  It  is,  indeed,  strange  that  men  should  take  a  solemn 
oath  to  faithfully  abide  by  and  support  all  laws  and  proclamations 
which  have  been  made  during  the  existing  rebellion  with  reference  to 
the  emancipation  of  slaves,  and  in  the  next  breath  favor  gradual 
emancipation.  It  is  the  part  of  wisdom  and  the  part  of  duty  to  accept 
what  is  inevitable  without  resistance." 

Governor  Parsons,  of  Alabama,  tried  to  convince  the  people  of  that 
State  that  the  abolition  of  slavery  was  a  finality— with  how  little 
success  the  sequel  showed.  "  There  is  no  longer  a  slave  in  Alabama," 
he  said.  "  It  is  thus  made  manifest  to  the  world  that  the  right  of 
secession  for  the  purpose  of  establishing  a  separate  confederacy, 
based  on  the  idea  of  African  slavery,  has  been  fully  and  effectually 
tried,  and  is  a  failure."  In  the  Convention  called  by  the  Provisional 
Governor,  in  accordance  with  his  instructions,  the  reactionary  spirit 
was  made  clearly  manifest.  The  contentions  of  aiitc-licllHin  days 
were  revived.  It  was  argued  in  the  debates  that  the  State  had  com- 
mitted no  crime  by  secession,  that  only  individuals  could  be  punished; 
that  secession  worked  no  forfeiture  of  the  right  of  slaveowners  in 
their  slave  property,  and  that  there  was  no  power  in  the  United  States 
Government  by  proclamation  or  otherwise  to  destroy  slavery.  Al- 
though the  Convention  repealed  the  Ordinance  of  Secession  and 
adopted  the  Thirteenth  Amendment,  the  Governor  and  Legislature 
elected  under  the  revised  Constitution,  which  was  not  submitted  to 
the  people,  at  once  evinced  a  purpose  to  subject  the  negro  population 


PRESIDENT  JOHNSON'S   POLICY.  195 

to  an  unfriendly  code.  Freedmen,  free  negroes,  and  nmlattoes,  when 
contracting  to  labor  for  a  longer  time  than  one  mouth,  were  required 
to  enter  into  a  written  agreement,  witnessed  by  two  white  persons, 
and  failure  to  perform  the  contract  on  the  part  of  the  freedman  was 
made  a  misdemeanor.  The  penalty  was  loss  of  wages  and  sentence 
for  vagrancy,  which  meant  sale  to  the  highest  bidder  and  virtual 
slavery.  The  Governor-elect,  Robert  M.  Patton,  in  his  address  on 
assuming  office,  desired  it  to  be  understood,  while  commending  the 
policy  of  the  President,  that  socially  and  politically  the  affairs  of  the 
State  should  be  controlled  by  the  superior  intelligence  of  the  white 
men.  A  few  inconveniences  incident  to  the  situation  were  to  be  en- 
dured until  they  could  be  changed,  but  in  due  season  Alabama  was  to 
control  the  negro  much  as  before  the  war. 

In  South  Carolina  and  Florida  the  services  of  the  Provisional  Gov- 
ernors, Perry  and  Marvin,  wrere  merely  perfunctory.  In  the  former 
the  Ordinance  repealing  the  Ordinance  of  Secession  was  as  hurried 
as  the  passage  of  that  initial  act  of  the  rebellion  had  been  nearly  five 
years  before,  and  the  same  man  who  forced  the  adoption  of  the  one 
offered  the  other  for  adoption — Francis  W.  Pickens.  South  Carolina 
hesitated  to  accept  the  Thirteenth  Amendment,  and  it  was  only  after 
pressure  had  been  brought  to  bear  upon  the  Legislature  by  President 
Johnson  and  Secretary  Seward  that  it  was  ratified.  The  legislation 
affecting  the  freedmen  was  not  only  singularly  inopportune,  but  re- 
markably vicious.  Within  a  fortnight  of  the  assembling  of  the  39th 
Congress  an  act  was  passed  making  felonies  of  crimes  committed  by 
persons  of  color  that  were  only  misdemeanors  if  committed  by  white 
persons.  In  many  other  directions  special  laws  were  enacted  for  the 
colored  population  that  were  restrictive,  burdensome,  unjust,  and 
tyrannical,  and  special  courts  were  created  for  cases  in  which  persons 
of  color  were  one  or  both  the  parties.  This  was  a  deliberate  attempt 
to  substitute  serfdom  for  slavery  by  means  of  this  new  colored  code, 
but  Major-General  Sickles  interfered,  and  the  second  South  Carolina 
conspiracy  was  rendered  nugatory.  In  Florida  a  policy  similar  to 
that  of  South  Carolina,  Alabama,  and  Mississippi  was  adopted.  The 
ratification  of  the  Thirteenth  Amendment  was  not  made  until  after  it 
had  been  proclaimed  as  part  of  the  organic  law.  By  their  acts  all 
these  States  rendered  President  Johnson's  Reconstruction  policy  fu- 
tile, and  compelled  the  more  drastic  plan  of  restoration  that  Congress 
afterward  adopted. 

The  part  of  the  "  Old  Dominion  "  that  now  constitutes  the  State  of 
Virginia  was  more  torn  and  trampled  upon  than  any  section  of  the 
self-constituted  Confederacy.  For  four  years  it  had  been  a  battle- 
ground of  the  rebellion.  From  the  James  to  the  Potomac,  from  the 


196  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

sea  to  the  Alleghanies,  it  had  never  ceased  to  resound  with  the  tread 
of  two  hostile  armies.  Everywhere,  in  painful  contrast  with  its  for- 
mer beauty  and  prosperity,  it  showed  the  ravages  of  war — it  was  im- 
poverished, devastated,  helpless.  Of  the  proud  State  that  went  into 
secession  only  a  fragment  remained.  The  secession  of  Virginia  from 
the  United  States  was  the  signal  for  the  secession  of  the  western 
counties  of  the  State  from  Virginia.  While  the  table  lands  and  the 
valleys  of  the  eastern  counties  were  crushed  under  the  tread  of  armed 
men,  forty  of  the  western  counties  formed  a  new  State  without  asking 
the  consent  of  the  old  one.  The  new  State  of  West  Virginia,  the  only 
State  except  Nevada  admitted  during  the  war,  was  the  child  of  neces- 
sity. There  had  long  been  antagonism  between  the  two  sections. 
Formidable  mountain  ranges  separated  them,  and  the  inhabitants  of 
each  saw  little  of  the  other.  They  had  no  comity  of  interest  and  no 
unity  of  sentiment.  The  interests  of  the  eastern  counties  were  on  the 
seaboard,  those  of  the  western  counties  on  the  Ohio.  The  inhabitants 
of  tidewater  Virginia  were  rich,  proud,  haughty  slaveholders,  claim- 
ing descent  from  the  cavaliers  of  old  England,  and  with  estates  that 
were  manorial  in  extent  and  methods  of  administration.  Far  different 
were  the  men  of  the  mountains.  For  the  most  part  they  were  descend- 
ants of  hardy  frontiersmen,  a  majority  of  whom  had  fought  in  the 
Revolution  and  the  Indian  wars.  Their  land  patents  were  certificates 
of  patriotic  service  in  founding  the  Nation.  They  had  few  slaves,  and 
their  devotion  to  the  Union  was  greater  than  their  interest  in  slavery. 
When  Virginia  seceded  at  Richmond  they  set  up  a  new  government 
for  the  whole  State  at  Wheeling,  with  Francis  II.  Pierpont  as  Gov- 
ernor, but  the  experiment  was  an  anomaly, and  it  was  soon  determined 
to  organize  a  new  State  and  claim  admission  into  the  Union.  The 
Ordinance  to  organize  the  new  State  was  adopted  August  20,  1801, 
and  approved  by  the  people  on  the  fourth  Thursday  of  October.  The 
Convention  to  frame  the  new  Constitution  assembled  at  Wheeling 
on  the  20th  of  November,  and  their  work  was  ratified  by  a  popular 
vote  on  the  first  Thursday  of  April,  1802.  No  provision  had  been 
made  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  Constitution,  and  it  was  sent 
back  to  the  Convention  and  the  people  by  the  Senate  for  a  provision 
that  would  assure  gradual  emancipation.  Mr.  Sumner  desired  a  more 
radical  provision,  but  his  amendment  was  opposed  by  men  as  ad- 
vanced as  Wade,  of  Ohio;  Foot  and  Collamer,  of  Vermont,  and  Howe, 
of  Wisconsin.  The  bill  passed  the  Senate  July  14,  1802,  by  a  vote  of  23 
to  17,  all  the  Democrats,  except  Mr.  Rice,  of  Minnesota,  voting  against 
it.  The  Republicans  who  voted  with  the  minority  were  Chandler  and 
Howard,  of  Michigan,  because  the  people  concerned  had  done  nothing 
voluntarily  toward  emancipating  the  slaves;  Sumner  and  Wilson,  of 


PRESIDENT  JOHNSON'S   POLICY.  197 

Massachusetts,  because  the  Senate  had  not  adopted  the  anti-slavery 
amendment;  and  Trumbull,  of  Illinois,  and  Cowan,  of  Pennsylvania, 
because  of  the  irregularity  of  the  whole  proceeding. 

The  measure  did  not  come  up  in  the  House  until  the  9th  of  Decem- 
ber. The  debate  was  spirited,  but  of  no  great  importance,  because 
the  question  wras  not  so  much  one  of  constitutionality  as  of  expe- 
diency. The  view  of  the  strict  coustructionists  was  voiced  by  the 
venerable  John  J.  Crittendeu,  of  Kentucky,  who  said  this  would  be 
"  a  new-made  Union — the  old  majestic  body,  cut  and  slashed  by 
passion,  by  war,  coming  to  form  another  government,  another  Union." 
This  was  the  view  that  a  great  war  should  work  no  change  in  ideas 
or  conditions.  Thaddeus  Stevens  expressed  the  view  dictated  by 
sound  common  sense,  discarding  the  notion  that  the  consent  of  Vir- 
ginia was  in  any  way  necessary  to  the  proposed  act.  "  Governor 
Pierpont,"  he  said,  "  is  an  excellent  man,  and  I  wish  he  were  the 
Governor  elected  by  the  people  of  Virginia.  But  according  to  my 
principles  operating  at  the  present  time,  I  can  vote  for  the  admission 
of  West  Virginia  without  any  compunctions  of  conscience — only 
with  some  doubt  about  the  policy  of  it.  None  of  the  States  now  in 
rebellion  are  entitled  to  the  protection  of  the  Constitution.  These 
proceedings  are  in  virtue  of  the  laws  of  war.  We  may  admit  West 
Virginia  as  a  new  State,  not  by  virtue  of  any  provision  of  the  Con- 
stitution, but  under  our  absolute  power  which  the  laws  of  war  give  us 
in  the  circumstances  in  which  we  are  placed.  I  shall  vote  for  this  bill 
upon  that  theory,  and  upon  that  alone.  I  will  not  stultify  myself  by 
supposing  that  we  have  any  warrant  in  the  Constitution  for  this  pro- 
ceeding." 

"  Let  there  not  be  two  Virginias,"  pleaded  Mr.  Segar,  who,  by  a 
construction  as  broad  as  that  against  which  he  was  contending,  was 
permitted  to  represent  the  district  in  which  Fortress  Monroe  was 
included;  "  let  us  remain  one  and  united.  Do  not  break  up  the  rich 
cluster  of  glorious  memories  and  associations  which  gather  over  the 
name  and  the  history  of  this  ancient  and  once  glorious  Common- 
wealth." 

The  bill  was  passed  by  96  to  54  votes,  all  the  Representatives  voting 
for  it  being  Republicans.  Among  the  Republicans  who  voted  against 
it  wereConway,  of  Kansas;  Francis  Thomas,  of  Maryland,  and  Roscoe 
Conkling,  of  New  York.  When  West  Virginia  became  a  State  Gov- 
ernor Pierpont's  Virginia  capital  was  transferred  from  Wheeling  to 
Alexandria,  and  the  fiction  of  a  State  Government  was  maintained 
until  President  Johnson  found  it  convenient  to  recognize  the  skeleton 
in  the  effort  to  infuse  new  life  into  the  old  State  of  Virginia.  The 
attempt  was  a  failure,  not  only  because  it  was  prematurely  made, 


198  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

but  from  the  impossibility  of  building  a  stable  structure  on  so  feeble 
a  foundation.  Mr.  Stevens  said  all  its  archives,  property,  and  effects 
could  be  carried  to  Richmond  in  an  ambulance.  In  Arkansas,  Ten- 
nessee, and  Louisiana  the  reputed  State  governments,  which  Mr.  Lin- 
coln had  ineffectually  tried  to  galvanize  into  life,  were  now  adopted 
by  President  Johnson  with  results  as  unsatisfactory  as  in  all  the  other 
cases. 

The  failure  of  President  Johnson's  plan  of  Reconstruction  was  not 
due  so  much  to  its  character,  or  to  the  character  of  the  men  to  whom 
the  task  was  committed,  as  to  the  advantage  that  was  taken  of  an 
effort  that  was  prematurely  made  to  re-establish  slavery  in  the  South 
in  substance  if  not  in  form.  It  soon  became  apparent  that  the  assent 
to  the  Thirteenth  Amendment  was  intended  to  be  a  gross  deception. 
Northern  opinion  was  derided  in  every  Southern  State,  and  the  au- 
thority of  Congress  was  treated  as  if  it  was 
without  effect  in  the  Slave  States.  The  North 
had  conquered,  and  then  the  South  proceeded 
to  do  as  it  pleased.  Unrepentant  rebels  acted 
as  if  it  was  the  United  States  that  had  tired 
of  the  war  —  not  the  Southern  Confederacy 
that  had  failed.  Every  Southern  man  who 
accepted  the  results  of  the  war  honestly  was 
ostracized — General  Longstreet  being  a  con- 
spicuous example — and  the  freedmen  were 
treated  with  a  cruelty  and  injustice  that  were 
unknown  in  the  days  when  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cab- 
GEN.  JAMES  LONGSTREET.  in "  drew  tears  from  Northern  eyes,  and 

implanted    hate    in    Southern    hearts.      The 

vagrancy  acts,  adopted  by  the  Southern  Legislatures  almost  simul- 
taneously and  in  defiance  of  Congress,  were  not  only  unjustifiable 
but  atrocious.  A  vagrant  became  only  another  name  for  a  slave. 
Vagrants  in  Alabama  were  "  stubborn  or  refractory  servants,"  and 
"  servants  who  loiter  away  their  time."  Every  man  or  woman  writh  a 
black  skin  was  a  servant.  Mobile  was  given  a  charter  that  made  the 
municipal  corporation  the  direct  and  active  agent  in  re-enslaving  the 
blacks.  By  the  terms  of  this  new  charter  the  mayor,  aldermen,  and 
common  council  were  empowered  "  to  cause  all  vagrants,"  . 
"  all  such  as  have  no  visible  means  of  support,"  .  .  .  "all  who 
can  show7  no  reasonable  cause  of  employment  or  business  in  the  city," 
.  .  .  "  all  who  have  no  fixed  residence  or  can  not  give  a  good  ac- 
count of  themselves,"  .  .  .  "or  are  loitering  in  or  about  tippling- 
houses,"  "  to  give  security  for  their  good  behavior  for  a  reasonable 
time  and  to  indemnify  the  city  against  any  charge  for  their  support, 


PRESIDENT  JOHNSON'S   POLICY.  199 

and  in  case  of  their  inability  or  refusal  to  give  security,  to  cause  them 
to  be  confined  to  labor  for  a  limited  time,  not  exceeding  six  calendar 
months,  which  said  labor  shall  be  designated  by  the  said  mayor, 
aldermen,  and  common  council,  for  the  benefit  of  said  city." 

When  such  enactments  as  this  are  recalled  it  is  easy  to  see  why 
Johnson's  "  policy  "  and  Reward's  hopes  were  foredoomed  to  failure. 

In  Alabama  a  "  vagrant  "  could  be  sold  or  hired  for  only  six  months 
for  the  crime  of  being  both  poor  and  black,  but  in  Florida  the  term 
was  made  a  whole  year,  and  not  only  were  negroes  to  be  tried  only  in 
courts  specially  established  for  the  trial  of  negroes,  but  no  present- 
ment, indictment,  or  written  pleading  was  required.  Inability  to  pay 
the  costs  in  such  proceedings  was  in  itself  sufficient  ground  for  en- 
slavement, not  for  the  actual  amount  to  be  paid  in  labor,  but  for  the 
shortest  term  of  service  for  which  a  white  man  would  agree  to  pay 
them.  The  Florida  enactments,  conceived  in  mere  cruelty,  are  as- 
tounding. For  merely  intruding  himself  "  into  any  religious  or  other 
public  assembly  of  white  persons  or  into  any  railroad  car  or  other 
vehicle  set  apart  for  wyhite  persons,"  the  wretched  negro  was  to  u  stand 
on  the  pillory  for  one  hour,  and  then  whipped  with  thirty-nine  lashes 
on  the  bare  back."  The  possession  of  arms  by  a  negro  wras  rigorously 
punished  in  all  the  States.  The  Louisiana  Legislature,  with  an  equal 
disregard  of  English  grammar  and  common  humanity,  decreed  that 
"  every  adult  freed  man  or  woman  shall  furnish  themselves  with  a 
comfortable  home  and  visible  means  of  support  within  twenty  days 
after  the  passage  of  this  act,"  and  that  "  any  freed  man  or  woman 
failing  to  obtain  a  home  and  support  as  thus  provided  shall  be  im- 
mediately arrested  by  any  sheriff  or  constable  in  any  parish,  or  by  the 
police  officers  in  any  city  or  town  in  said  parish  where  said  freedman 
may  be,  and  by  them  delivered  to  the  Recorder  of  the  parish,  and  by 
him  hired  out,  by  public  advertisement,  to  some  citizen  being  the 
highest  bidder,  for  the  remainder  of  the  year."  Besides  such  inhuman 
enactments  as  these,  the  condition  of  the  negro  was  rendered  still 
more  intolerable  by  the  imposition  of  odious  and  unjust  taxes,  that 
were  strenuously  exacted.  These  laws,  the  full  recital  of  which  would 
require  a  volume,  were  an  integral  part  of  President  Johnson's 
scheme,  to  which  Congress  would  have  given  assent  if  the  scheme  had 
been  accepted.  The  only  explanation  of  the  madness  that  pervaded 
the  South  after  the  close  of  the  war  is  the  imbruted  condition  in  which 
the  slave  system  and  an  unsuccessful  war  for  slavery  had  left  the 
Southern  people. 

To  Mr.  Seward,  to  whose  eloquent  pleadings  in  behalf  of  a  mag- 
nanimous policy  for  the  South  President  Johnson's  scheme  of  Recon- 
struction was  owing,  these  results  could  not  fail  to  bring  a  deep  sense 


200  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

of  disappointment,  humiliation,  and  shame.  To  his  friends  he  ex- 
pressed his  surprise  and  chagrin  that  the  South  should  respond  with 
such  shameless  and  vicious  ingratitude  to  the  magnanimous  tenders 
of  sympathy  and  friendship  from  the  National  Administration.  A 
bolder  man  would  have  openly  declared  that  the  policy  was  a  failure, 
and  insisted  upon  its  abandonment.  Instead  of  doing  this,  he  sought 
to  avert  consequences  he  had  not  foreseen  through  the  Provisional 
Governors  of  the  President's  selection,  and  almost  before  he  was 
aware  of  it  he  was  engulfed  in  the  whirlpool  that  surged  around  the 
Administration.  Holding  himself  responsible  for  the  policy  of  mag- 
nanimity that  Johnson  had  substituted  at  his  request  for  one  of  rigor 
and  punishment,  he  could  not  persuade  himself  to  desert  the  admin- 
istration he  had  started  on  the  road  to  misfortune  and  discomfiture. 
Like  Marcy  in  the  Cabinet  of  President  Pierce,  and  Webster  in  the 
Cabinet  of  President  Tyler,  he  sought  to  mitigate  a  policy  the  con- 
sequences of  which  it  would  be  cruel  to  his  memory  to  say  he  ap- 
proved, and  so  remained  at  his  post  until  retreat  became  impossible. 
He  had  tried  to  become  the  masterful  spirit  of  Lincoln's  administra- 
tion but  failed,  and  submitted  gracefully,  to  succeed  in  his  proper 
sphere.  With  Johnson  he  succeeded  in  imposing  his  ideas  upon  the 
President  only  to  fail.  "  Action  has  been  devoured  by  his  own  dogs," 
Toombs  said,  when  Seward  was  defeated  for  the  Republican  nomina- 
tion at  Chicago  in  1860.  Now  he  was  indeed  the  cuckold  for  which 
Actreon  is  the  synonym — it  was  no  longer  the  full  Republican  hounds 
by  which  he  was  devoured,  but  the  bloodhounds  of  the  Southern  plan- 
tations; and  Andrew  Johnson  wras  his  Diana,  the  Inexorable.  He 
sank  from  his  pre-eminence  as  the  Great  Secretary  to  the  position  of 
a  mere  satellite,  when  his  opinionated  and  ambitious  Chief  went 
"  swinging  around  the  circle." 

"  The  Democratic  plan  of  restoration  was  consistent  with  the  Con- 
stitution and  the  best,"  said  a  Democratic  writer  at  the  close  of  John- 
son's administration;  "  Mr.  Lincoln's  the  next  best,  and  that  of  the 
Republicans  the  worst." 

If  restoration  with  restrictions  went  so  near  nullifying  the  results 
of  the  war  in  the  first  year  of  the  peace,  it  is  easy  enough  to  see  that 
restoration  without  restrictions  would  have  meant  the  resuscitation 
of  slavery. 


IV. 

THE  CONGRESS  AND  THE  PRESIDENT. 

Meeting  of  the  Thirty-ninth  Congress — Dissatisfaction  with  the  Presi- 
dent's Policy — Thaddeus  Stevens — Charles  Sumner — Their  Lead- 
ership— New  Men  in  the  Two  Houses — Delegations  from  the 
Southern  States — Mr.  Stevens's  Theory — Henry  J.  Raymond,  the 
Champion  of  the  Administration — Hurtful  Democratic  Support 
— Shellabarger's  Reply  to  Raymond — The  Specific  Act — The 
Democratic  Position — Establishment  of  the  Freedman's  Bureau 
—Administration  Republicans — The  Civil  Rights  Bill — General 
James  H.  Lane — The  Fourteenth  Amendment — The  Tenure  of 
Office  Bill — The  Reconstruction  Acts — Riot  in  New  Orleans— 
The  Fortieth  Congress — Military  Government  for  the  South. 


HE  profound  disgust  that  President  Johnson's  Restoration 
Policy  had  inspired  in  the  Republican  party  was  mani- 
fested immediately  upon  the  assembling  of  the  39th  Con- 
gress. So  completely  had  the  Peace  Democracy  been 
beaten  in  the  elections  of  1864,  that  in  the  House  Mr.  Colfax  was  re- 
elected  Speaker  by  139  votes  to  36  for  James  Brooks,  of  New  York. 
The  President's  message,  although  it  was  unexpectedly  moderate  in 
tone  and  indicated  no  purpose  to  break  with  the  majority  in  the  two 
Houses,  was  received  with  scant  courtesy.  Indeed,  the  message  had 
not  yet  been  received  when  the  unmistakable  unfriendliness  of  Con- 
gress toward  the  Administration  was  shown  in  a  number  of  ways. 
Speaker  Colfax,  on  assuming  the  chair  in  the  House,  instead  of  mak- 
ing a  mere  colorless  speech  of  thanks  for  the  honor  conferred  upon 
him,  incorporated  in  what  had  always  been  a  mere  ceremonial  address 
some  positive  declarations  touching  the  work  before  the  body  over 
which  he  was  called  to  preside.  "  In  this  great  work,"  he  said,  "  the 
world  should  witness  the  most  inflexible  fidelity,  the  most  earnest  de- 
votion to  the  principles  of  liberty  and  humanity,  the  truest  patriotism, 
and  the  wisest  statesmanship."  Mr.  Stevens's  motion  for  a  Joint  Com- 
mittee on  Reconstruction  followed  immediately  upon  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  House.  The  objection  of  Mr.  Eldridge,  of  Wisconsin,  to 
the  reception  of  the  resolution  was  summarily  disposed  of  by  a  motion 
to  suspend  the  rules,  that  was  carried  by  129  ayes  to  35  noes.  A  sug- 
gestion of  Mr.  Dawson,  of  Pennsylvania,  that  the  resolution  should 
be  postponed  until  after  the  receipt  of  the  President's  message  went 


202  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

unheeded,  and  the  resolution  was  adopted  by  the  same  vote  with 
which  it  was  received.  In  the  Senate  Mr.  Sumner  outlined  a  radical 
policy  of  Reconstruction  without  reference  to  what  the  President 
might  or  might  not  say  on  the  subject.  This  precipitancy,  and  the 
character  of  the  men  by  whom  it  was  promoted,  was  an  unmistakable 
index  to  the  complete  repudiation  of  all  the  acts  of  the  Administration 
by  Congress  that  quickly  followed,  and  was  pressed  with  increasing- 
vigor  and  bitterness  while  Johnson  remained  the  Chief  Executive. 

The  two  men  who  made  the  onslaught  on  the  policy  that  Seward  had 
advised  and  that  Johnson  had  pursued  were  not  so  much  types  as 
embodiments  of  the  militant  spirit  of  the  North.  Both  had  been 
giants  in  repelling  the  aggressions  of  the  slaveholders  in  Congress 
at  the  time  of  the  arrogant  supremacy  of  the  South — Thaddeus  Ste- 
vens in  the  House  and  Charles  Simmer  in  the  Senate.  The  war  found 
them  out  of  sympathy  writh  an  Administration  that,  with  all  their 
strength,  they  were  not  strong  enough  to  antagonize  openly  while 
the  conflict  lasted.  Their  arena  was  the  floors  of  Congress,  but  all 
eyes  were  directed  to  the  battlefields  of  the  Union  from  Sumter  to 
Appomattox,  and  these  forums  shrank  into  comparative  insignificance 
while  battles  remained  to  be  fought  and  won.  With  surrender  and 
peace  the  opportunity  came  to  them  to  assert  the  leadership  for  which 
they  had  longed,  and  to  crown  their  careers  with  the  highest  achieve- 
ments of  the  statesman.  Both  were  men  of  a  high  order  of  talent,  but 
both  were  lacking  in  some  of  the  most  necessary  attributes  of  a  suc- 
cessful leader  of  men.  They  were  good  special  pleaders,  but  not  great 
lawyers.  They  were  both  constructionists  to  the  point  of  obstruction. 
They  were  not  logicians — they  were  dogmatic  propounders  of  a  theory 
that  was  right  because  they  propounded  it.  They  were  great  leaders, 
but  leaders  without  a  party  and  without  a  following.  Their  places 
were  secure  to  them  for  so  many  years  as  the  tributes  of  mere  men 
to  demigods.  They  enjoyed  all  the  advantages  of  popularity  without 
being  popular.  Of  the  two,  Stevens  wras  by  far  the  abler.  He  had  the 
stronger  will  and  the  clearer  perceptions.  With  Pluto's  iron  counte- 
nance, he  had  the  natural  feet  of  Arion.  His  thunderbolts  were  the 
darts  of  Jove.  With  all  his  inflexibility  of  character,  he  could  be 
genial  and  even  generous.  If  he  was  without  tender  emotions,  he  was 
always  sternly  just  to  the  strong,  but  he  hated  the  shams  of  the  slave- 
holding  class  as  fiercely  as  the  impoverished  Southron  hated  the 
grinning  humility  of  the  freedmen  after  the  war.  Sumner  was  not  as 
saturnine  in  appearance  as  Stevens,  but  he  was  scarcely  less  inflexible 
in  countenance  and  character.  His  best  speeches  were  marred  by  the 
pedantry  of  the  recluse,  and  his  efforts  at  practical  legislation  had 
the  faults  and  weaknesses  of  briefs  drawn  by  a  lawryer  who  had  never 


THE   CONGRESS   AND   THE   PRESIDENT.  203 

practiced.  lu  tJie  Senate  lie  towered  like  Jove,  "  above  them  all  by 
his  great  looks  and  power  imperial,"  but  even  when  he  took  the  initia- 
tive, in  fact,  it  was  left  to  other  Senators,  with  less  of  the  mien  of  the 
Grecian  Jupiter,  to  clothe  his  propositions  with  simplicity  of  form. 
With  two  such  men  in  the  lead — the  one  in  the  House  and  the  other 
in  the  Senate — the  forensic  contests  in  the  39th  Congress  could  not 
fail  to  become  Titanic,  and  it  was  soon  shown  that  there  were  Titans 
in  both  Houses  besides  Tellus  Stevens  and  Caelum  Sumner. 

The  obstacles  that  confronted  President  Johnson's  administration 
in  Congress  were  not  so  much  in  the  principles  by  which  the  results 
of  his  policy  would  have  to  be  tested,  as  in  the  character  of  the  results 
themselves;  not  so  much  in  the  leaders  of  the  opposition  to  his  policy 
in  the  two  Houses,  as  in  the  elements  that  made  the  opposition  Re- 
publican; not  so  much  in  the  forces  opposed  to  the  Johnson  plan,  as 
in  the  elements  that  aligned  themselves  in  its  support.  The  condition 
of  the  reconstructed  States  and  the  obnoxious  legislation  of  the  re- 
constructed Legislatures,  in  themselves,  made  the  recognition  of  the 
Johnson  plan,  as  an  accomplished  fact,  impossible.  The  fact  that  the 
President  ignored  this  feature  in  his  message  only  tended  to  anger 
those  whom  it  could  not  deceive.  Among  these  men,  especially  in  the 
House,  was  an  unusual  number  of  new  members  who  had  been  effi- 
cient soldiers  in  the  war.  General  Marston  again  represented  New 
Hampshire.  General  Banks,  after  a  checkered  military  career,  re- 
sumed the  seat  he  had  left  in  1857  to  become  Governor  of  Massachu- 
setts. General  John  H.  Ketcham,  the  only  Congressman  who  never 
made  a  speech  and  yet  obtained  an  influential  standing  in  the  House, 
appeared  for  the  first  time  from  New  York.  Ohio  sent  General  Ruth- 
erford B.  Hayes,  destined  to  become  President  of  the  United  States. 
From  Wisconsin  came  General  Halbert  E.  Paine  on  crutches,  having 
lost  one  of  his  legs  in  battle.  In  the  Senate,  in  place  of  William  A. 
Richardson,  the  friend  of  Douglas,  was  Richard  Yates,  the  distin- 
guished War  Governor  of  Illinois.  Many  of  the  Republican  Repre- 
sentatives who  were  beaten  in  the  reaction  of  1862  had  been  again 
returned  on  the  tidal  wave  that  re-elected  Lincoln  in  1864.  Among 
these  the  most  eminent  were  Roscoe  Conkling,  of  New  York,  and  John 
A.  Bingham  and  Samuel  Shellabarger,  of  Ohio.  General  Schenck 
and  General  Garfield  were  in  their  second  terms,  and  James  G.  Blaine 
was  rapidly  coming  into  prominence.  Such  men  as  these  could  not 
stand  idly  by  while  Mr.  Johnson  and  Mr.  Seward  frittered  away  the 
results  of  the  war.  But  more  hurtful  to  the  Administration  than  these 
—only  less  hurtful  than  the  President's  Democratic  champions — were 
the  men  who  came  to  Washington,  either  at  the  beginning  of  the 
Congress  or  soon  afterward,  demanding  the  right  to  represent  the 


204  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

Southern  States.  As  many  as  four  of  Johnson's  Provisional  Govern- 
ors claimed  seats  in  the  Senate — Lewis  E.  Parsons,  of  Alabama; 
William  Marvin,  of  Florida;  William  L.  Sharkey,  of  Mississippi,  and 
Benjamin  F.  Perry,  of  South  Carolina.  Georgia  got  back  into  the 
Union  with  both  feet,  sending  as  Senators  in  Congress  Alexander  11. 
Stephens  and  Herschel  V.  Johnson.  The  dismounted  rebel  brigadiers 
appeared  in  the  House  wing  of  the  Capitol  with  all  the  confidence  of 
conquerors — General  Cullen  A.  Battle,  of  Alabama;  General  Philip 
Cook  and  General  W.  T.  \Vofford,  of  Georgia;  Colonel  Arthur  E.  Rey- 
uolds  and  Colonel  Richard  Pinson,  of  Mississippi;  Colonel  Josiah  E. 
Turner,  Jr.,  of  North  Carolina;  and  Colonel  John  1).  Kennedy  and 
General  Samuel  McGowan,  of  South  Carolina.  The  South  had  come 
back  to  Washington  to  insist  on  the  inalienable  rights  of  Statehood, 
and  to  rule  the  nation  as  it  had  ruled  it  before  the  war. 

Instead  of  attempting  to  untie  the  Gordian  knot  of  Statehood  under 
the  Constitution  in  the  manner  of  lawyers  like  Reverdy  Johnson  in 
the  Senate  and  William  E.  Niblack  in  the  House,  Mr.  Stevens  adopted 
the  Alexandrian  method  and  severed  it.  He  claimed  that  the  States 
that  seceded  from  the  Union  must  come  back  to  it  as  new  States  or 
remain  as  conquered  provinces.  "  The  separate  action  of  the  Presi- 
dent or  the  Senate  or  the  House,"  he  said,  "  amounts  to  nothing 
either  in  admitting  new  States  or  guaranteeing  Republican  forms  of 
government  to  lapsed  or  outlawed  States."  Then  came  the  shot  that 
was  aimed  at  the  Executive,  although  the  President  was  not  men- 
tioned by  name  or  directly  alluded  to  in  any  part  of  Mr.  Stevens's 
speech.  u  Whence  springs  the  preposterous  idea,"  he  asked,  "  that 
any  one  of  these,  acting  separately,  can  determine  the  right  of  States 
to  send  Representatives  or  Senators  to  the  Congress  of  the  Union?  " 
Mr.  Stevens  did  not  design  at  that  time  to  extend  the  suffrage  to  the 
blacks  by  Federal  action,  but  by  excluding  the  entire  population  from 
the  basis  of  representation  in  Congress  to  compel  the  States,  in  their 
own  interest,  to  extend  the  franchise.  He  gave  notice,  however,  that 
the  freedmen  were  not  to  go  unprotected.  "  We  have,"  said  he, 
"  turned,  or  are  about  to  turn,  loose  four  million  slaves  without  a  hut 
to  shelter  them  or  a  cent  in  their  pockets.  The  diabolical  laws  of 
slavery  have  prevented  them  from  acquiring  an  education,  under- 
standing the  commonest  laws  of  contract,  or  of  managing  the  ordi- 
nary business  of  life.  This  Congress  is  bound  to  look  after  them  until 
they  can  take  care  of  themselves.  If  we  do  not  hedge  them  around 
with  protecting  laws,  if  we  leave  them  to  the  legislation  of  their  old 
masters,  we  had  better  have  left  them  in  bondage.  Their  condition 
will  be  worse  than  that  of  our  prisoners  at  Andersonville.  If  we  fail 
in  this  great  duty  now  when  we  have  the  power,  we  shall  deserve  to 
receive  the  e'xecration  of  history  and  of  all  future  ages." 


THE   CONGRESS   AND   THE   PRESIDENT. 


205 


The  cry  that  this  is  a  white  man's  government,  which  had  been 
proclaimed  in  so  many  Democratic  platforms  during  the  war,  he  de- 
nounced with  great  vigor  and  bitterness.  "  Sir,"  he  said,  "  this  doc- 
trine of  a  white  man's  government  is  as  atrocious  as  the  infamous 
sentiment  that  damned  the  late  Chief  Justice  to  everlasting  fame,  and 
I  fear  to  everlasting  fire." 

This  speech  of  Mr.  Stevens  gave  great  offense  to  the  Administration. 
It  was  determined  that  it  must  be  answered  before  it  had  time  to 
enter  the  mind  and  heart  of  the  Republican  masses — answered  by  a 
man  who  stood  high  in  the  councils  of  the  party,  who  would  speak 
with  authority  for  the  large  Republican  element  that  was  expected 
to  rally  to  the  support  of  the 
President.  In  the  manner 
in  which  the  defense  was  at- 
tempted, as  well  as  in  the 
choice  of  the  champion,  it  is 
easy  to  recognize  the  deft 
hand  and  keen  brain  of  Mr. 
Seward.  The  ungrateful 
task,  as  it  proved,  fell  upon 
Henry  J.  Raymond,  the  ac- 
complished editor  of  the 
New  York  Times.  Mr.  Ray- 
mond was  still  a  compara- 
tively young  man,  gifted, 
admired,  and  ambitious.  As 
a  newspaper  writer  he  was 
especially  brilliant,  and  his 
paper  was  characterized  by 
a  literary  culture  and  schol- 
arly tone  never  before  at- 
tained by  any  American  journal.  In  their  mental  traits  and  intellec- 
tual graces  the  man  and  the  paper  were  counterparts  of  each  other. 
Besides,  Raymond  was  a  politician  of  long  experience.  He  had  been  a 
member  of  the  New  York  Assembly.  He  had  been  Lieutenant-Governor 
of  his  State,  and  was  a  parliamentarian  of  rare  tact  and  skill.  He 
began  his  journalistic  career  with  Mr.  Greeley  on  the  Tribune,  and  for 
a  number  of  years  their  personal  and  political  relations  were  very 
close.  It  was  not  long  after  their  business  connection  was  severed 
that  they  parted  company  politically.  When  the  political  firm  of 
Seward,  Weed  &  Greeley  wras  dissolved,  it  became  Seward,  Weed  & 
Raymond.  The  Times  had  avoided  the  political  vagaries  for  which 
the  Tribune  was  famous,  and  as  the  Seward  organ  in  New  York  Citv  it 


HENRY    J.    RAYMOND. 


206  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

displaced  the  Tribune  as  a  mouthpiece  of  the  party.  In  1864  Mr.  Ray- 
moiid  was  the  leader  of  the  New  York  delegation  in  the  Republican 
National  Convention,  and  its  platform  was  the  work  of  his  graceful 
pen.  He  helped  to  give  Johnson  the  nomination  for  the  Vice-Presi- 
dency, and  so  helped  to  make  him  President.  Elected  to  Congress 
with  the  assured  friendship  of  Seward  and  Lincoln,  he  expected  to  en- 
ter the  House  with  all  the  advantages  of  position  and  influence  that 
generally  come  to  men  only  after  long  service.  With  Seward,  the 
master  spirit  of  Johnson's  administration,  he  failed  to  conceive  that 
Lincoln's  death  had  impaired  his  prospects — that  his  championship 
of  Johnson's  policy  would  so  completely  identify  him  with  a  bad  cause 
that  he  would  share  in  its  ruin.  If  Lincoln  had  lived,  and  had  pursued 
the  policy  that  the  friends  of  the  Administration  claimed  was  his,  it 
would  have  been  an  honor  to  go  down  with  the  ship,  but  to  leave  one's 
career  behind  him  for  the  sake  of  Andrew  Johnson  was  too  great  a 
sacrifice  to  excite  an}'  emotion,  except  that  of  pity. 

Mr.  Stevens's  speech  was  made  on  the  18th  of  December,  and  so 
Mr.  Raymond  was  compelled  to  hurry  his  response,  so  as  to  make  it 
before  the  adjournment  for  the  Christmas  holidays,  which  was  set 
for  the  22d.  He  was  ready  to  make  his  argument  on  the  morning  of 
the  21st,  but  an  accident  intervened  that  delayed  his  speech  until 
later  in  the  day.  An  Ohio  Democrat  of  the  Vallandighani  type,  who 
was  never  heard  of  afterward — William  E.  Finck — claimed  the  floor, 
and  was  graciously  accorded  it  by  a  majority  that  was  pleased  to 
see  the  Administration  subjected  to  a  tactical  blunder  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  struggle.  The  one  thing  that  could  not  fail  to  be  the  most 
hurtful  to  the  President's  policy  at  that  time  was  the  support  of  the 
Peace  Democracy.  Finck,  unfortunately  for  the  cause  he  had  at 
heart,  was  insensible  to  the  shame  of  his  party,  or  to  the  fatal  conse- 
quences of  any  proffers  of  sympathy  or  support  from  it  to  any  cause 
at  that  time.  The  inappositeness  of  Finck's  speech  was  still  further 
aggravated  by  an  inapposite  series  of  resolutions  offered  the  same 
day  by  Mr.  Voorhees,  of  Indiana.  Voorhees  was  the  personification 
of  inappositeness  in  politics.  With  a  fine  presence  and  a  haughty 
mien,  he  had  caught  his  political  inspirations  from  the  Southern 
statesmen  who  had  left  Congress  before  he  entered  it.  He  stood  ready 
now  to  welcome  them  back  with  fraternal  hands  from  bloody  fields. 
Such  were  the  two  too  ready  champions  of  a  cause  in  behalf  of  which 
Raymond  was  about  to  plead  with  his  own  party  to  stay  its  hands  and 
turn  away  from  its  purpose. 

Mr.  Raymond  felt  the  incongruity  of  his  intended  effort  with  his 
environment,  and  he  did  not  fail  to  show  his  resentment  and  adminis- 
ter a  stinging  rebuke,  not  only  to  the  men  but  to  the  party  guilty  of 


THE   CONGRESS   AND   THE   PRESIDENT.  207 

these  impertinences.  "  I  have  no  party  feeling/'  he  said,  in  beginning 
his  speech,  "  which  would  prevent  me  from  rejoicing  in  the  indications 
apparent  on  the  Democratic  side  of  the  House  of  a  purpose  to  concur 
with  the  loyal  administration  of  the  Government  and  with  the  loyal 
majorities  in  both  Houses  of  Congress  in  restoring  peace  and  order  to 
our  common  country.  I  can  not,  however,  help  wishing,  sir,  that  these 
indications  of  an  interest  in  the  preservation  of  our  Government  had 
come  somewhat  sooner.  I  can  not  help  feeling  that  such  expressions? 
can  not  now  be  of  as  much  use  to  the  country  as  they  might  once  have 
been.  If  we  could  have  had  from  that  side  of  the  House  such  indica- 
tions of  an  interest  in  the  preservation  of  the  Union,  such  heartfelt 
sympathy  with  the  friends  of  the  Government  for  the  preservation 
of  that  Union,  such  hearty  denunciations  for  all  those  who  were 
seeking  its  destruction  while  the  war  was  raging,  I  am  sure  we  might 
have  been  spared  some  years  of  war,  some  mill- 
ions of  money,  and  rivers  of  blood  and  tears." 

Raymond's  principal  aim  was  to  controvert 
Stevens's  theory  of  dead  States.  "  The  gentle- 
man from  Pennsylvania,"  he  said,  "  believes 
that  what  we  have  to  do  is  to  create  new  State;? 
out  of  this  conquered  territory,  at  the  proper 
time,  many  years  distant,  retaining  them  mean- 
while in  a  territorial  condition,  and  subjecting 
them  to  precisely  such  a  state  of  discipline  and 
tutelage  as  Congress  and  the  Government  of  the 
United  States  may  see  fit  to  prescribe.  If  I  be-  SAMUEL  SHELLABARGER. 
lieved  in  the  premises  he  assumes,  possibly, 

though  I  do  not  think  probably,  I  might  agree  with  the  conclusion  he 
has  reached ;  but,  sir,  I  can  not  believe  that  these  States  have  ever  been 
out  of  the  Union,  or  that  they  are  now  out  of  the  Union.  If  they  were, 
sir,  how  and  when  did  they  become  so?  By  what  specific  act,  at  what 
precise  time,  did  any  one  of  those  States  take  itself  out  of  the  Ameri- 
can Union?  " 

After  the  recess  Mr.  Shellabarger  answered  Mr.  Raymond  on  this 
point  with  a  caustic  summary,  that  is  in  itself  the  history  and  the 
substance  of  the  debate.  "  I  answer  him,"  said  the  earnest  member 
from  Ohio,  "  in  the  words  of  the  Supreme  Court,  '  The  causeless 
waging  against  their  own  Government  of  a  war  which  all  the  world 
acknowledges  to  have  been  the  greatest  civil  war  known  in  the  history 
of  the  human  race.'  The  war  was  waged  by  these  people  as  States, 
and  it  went  through  long,  dreary  years.  In  it  they  threw  off  and 
defied  the  authority  of  your  Constitution,  your  laws,  and  your  Govern- 
ment. Thev  obliterated  from  their  State  constitutions  and  laws  every 


208  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

vestige  of  recognition  of  your  Government.  They  discarded  all  their 
official  oaths,  and  took  in  their  places  oaths  to  support  your  enemies' 
government.  They  seized,  in  their  own  States,  all  the  Nation's  prop- 
erty. Their  Senators  and  Representatives  in  your  Congress  insulted, 
bantered,  defied,  and  then  left  you.  They  expelled  from  their  land  or 
assassinated  every  inhabitant  of  known  loyalty.  They  betrayed  and 
surrendered  your  arms.  They  passed  sequestration  and  other  acts  in 
flagitious  violation  of  the  law  of  nations,  making  every  citizen  of  the 
United  States  an  alien  enemy,  and  placing  in  the  treasury  of  their 
rebellion  all  money  and  property  due  such  citizens.  They  framed 
iniquity  and  universal  murder  into  law.  For  years  they  besieged 
your  Capital  and  sent  your  bleeding  armies  in  rout  back  here  upon 
the  very  sanctuaries  of  your  national  power.  Their  pirates  burned 
your  unarmed  commerce  upon  every  sea.  They  carved  the  bones  of 
your  uiiburied  heroes  into  ornaments  and  drank  from  goblets  made 
out  of  their  skulls.  The}'  poisoned  3Tour  fountains,  put  mines  under 
your  soldiers'  prisons,  organized  bands  whose  leaders  were  concealed 
in  your  homes,  and  whose  commissions  ordered  the  torch  to  be  carried 
to  your  cities,  and  the  yellow  fever  to  your  wives  and  children.  They 
planned  one  universal  bonfire  of  the  North,  from  Lake  Ontario  to  the 
Missouri.  They  murdered,  by  systems  of  starvation  and  exposure, 
sixty  thousand  of  your  sons  as  brave  and  heroic  as  ever  martyrs  were. 
They  destro}'ed,  in  the  four  years  of  horrid  war,  another  army  so  large 
that  it  would  reach  almost  around  the  globe  in  marching-columns. 
And  then  to  give  to  the  infernal  drama  a  fitting  close,  and  to  concen- 
trate into  one  crime  all  that  is  criminal  in  crime  and  all  that  is  de- 
testable in  barbarism,  they  murdered  the  President  of  the  United 
States.  I  allude  to  these  horrid  events,  not  to  revive  frightful  mem- 
ories, or  to  bring  back  the  impulses  toward  the  perpetual  severance 
of  this  people  which  they  provoke.  I  allude  to  them  to  remind  us  how 
utter  was  the  overthrow  and  the  obliteration  of  all  government, 
divine  and  human;  how  total  was  the  wreck  of  all  constitutions  and 
laws,  political,  civil,  and  international.  I  allude  to  them  to  condense 
their  monstrous  enormities  of  guilt  into  one  crime,  and  to  point  the 
gentleman  from  New  York  to  it,  and  to  tell  him  that  that  was  the 
specific  act." 

Raymond  made  a  rejoinder  to  Shellabarger  before  the  debate  closed. 
but  without  effect.  His  speech  was  ingenious  and  it  was  praised  for 
its  cleverness,  but  it  met  with  no  practical  sympathy,  and  when  the 
test  vote  was  taken  only  one  Republican  in  the  House  voted  with 
Mr.  Raymond — his  colleague  and  friend,  William  A.  Darling.  While 
he  lived  Mr.  Raymond  believed  he  could  have  made  a  serious  diver- 
sion among  the  Republicans  in  Congress  if  he  could  have  had  the 


THE   CONGRESS   AND   THE   PRESIDENT. 


209 


benefit  of  the  hostility  of  President  Johnson's  Democratic  friends. 
He  was  especially  indignant  at  Mr.  Voorhees,  whose  ill-timed  reso- 
lution, that  "  the  President  is  entitled  to  the  thanks  of  Congress  and 
the  country  for  his  faithful,  wise,  and  successful  efforts  to  restore 
civil  government,  law,  and  order  to  the  States  lately  in  rebellion," 
was  the  cause  of  the  break  with  the  President,  and  the  disaster  that 
made  Raymond  the  approved  ally  of  the  discredited  Democracy. 

The  theory  of  Mr.  Stevens  that  the  insurrectionary  States  were,  in 
fact,  in  a  territorial  condition,  and  must  be  readmitted  before  they 
could  again  exercise  their  rights  under  the  Constitution,  never  be- 
came an  accepted  dogma  of  the  Republican  party.  Its  assertion  was 
as  necessary  in  practice  as  the  assertion  of  the  right  to  coerce  a  State 
had  been  five  years  before.  It  was  a  condition,  not  a  theory,  with 
which  Congress  had  to  deal.  The 
enunciation  of  the  theory  gave  the 
Democrats  the  hope  of  re-establishing 
their  party  upon  the  opposite  doc- 
trine— once  a  State  always  a  State. 
It  was  a  party  that  at  all  times  in  its 
long  history  had  been  willing  to  cover 
obnoxious  conditions  with  the  broad 
mantle  of  specious  dogma.  In  the 
century  of  its  existence  it  has  never 
once  pursued  a  policy  on  any  one 
great  question  that  outlasted  the  con- 
dition the  garment  of  dogma  was  in- 
tended to  protect; — without  excep- 
tion the  mantle  of  Democracy  has 
proved  a  shirt  of  Xessus  to  the  Re- 
public. The  Kentucky  and  Virginia 

Resolutions  of  1798,  framed  by  Jefferson  and  containing  the  doc- 
trine of  State  rights  were  intended  as  a  mere  political  expedient, 
but  proved  the  germs  of  nullification  and  secession.  The  Missouri 
Compromise  wras  Democratic  doctrine  in  1820,  and  its  repeal  in  1854.' 
The  power  of  the  people  of  the  Territories  to  admit  or  exclude  slavery 
was  Democratic  doctrine  in  1856,  and  the  power  to  admit  and  protect, 
but  not  to  exclude  it,  in  1860.  The  right  of  a  State  to  secede  was 
Democratic  doctrine  in  1861-4,  and  now  in  1865  all  the  deductions  and 
theories  of  nearly  seventy  years,  based  on  the  Resolutions  of  1798, 
wrere  cast  to  the  winds  for  a  dogma  unknown  to  Democratic  tradi- 
tions— the  inalienable  rights  of  Statehood.  "  I  have  now,"  said 
Reverdy  Johnson,  of  Maryland,  the  Democratic  champion  of  Andrew 
Johnson  in  the  Senate,  "  and  I  have  had  from  the  first,  a  very  decided 


REVERDY    JOHNSON. 


210  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

opinion  that  they  are  States  in  the  Union,  and  that  they  never  could 
have  been  placed  out  of  the  Union  without  the  consent  of  their  sister 
States.  The  insurrection  terminated,  the  authority  of  the  Govern- 
ment was  thereby  reinstated;  co  inxtantl  they  were  invested  with  all 
the  rights  belonging  to  them  originally — I  mean  as  States.  .  .  . 
In  my  judgment,  our  sole  authority  for  the  acts  which  have  been  done 
during  the  last  four  years  was  the  authority  communicated  to  Con- 
gress by  the  Constitution  to  suppress  insurrection.  If  the  power  can 
only  be  referred  to  that  clause,  in  my  opinion — speaking,  I  repeat, 
with  great  deference  to  the  judgment  of  others — the  moment  the  in- 
surrection was  terminated  there  was  no  power  whatever  left  in  the 
Congress  of  the  United  States  over  those  States;  and  I  am  glad  to  see, 
if  I  understand  his  message,  that  in  the  view  I  have  just  expressed  I 
have  the  concurrence  of  the  President  of  the  United  States." 

The  Democratic  contention  was  in  effect  that  the  fact  that  a  great 
war  of  eleven  States  had  been  wraged  for  four  years  against  the  Union 
was  to  be  blotted  out  of  the  Federal  calendar,  and  the  story  of  that 
war  left  to  become  a  mere  American  "  Froissart's  Chronicle  "  for  the 
amusement  of  schoolboys.  The  South  was  to  come  back,  like  the 
prodigal  of  old,  as  if  the  rebellious  States  had  never  repudiated  the 
paternal  Constitution  and  the  maternal  Union.  Slavery  was  to  be 
abolished,  it  is  true,  but  the  serfdom  of  Russia  had  been  substituted 
for  the  milder  form  of  Southern  bondage.  The  crime  of  rebellion  was 
not  only  to  go  unpunished,  but  it  was  to  be  rewarded,  and  Andrew 
Johnson  was  to  rule  over  the  Republic  under  the  banner  of  the  Democ- 
racy and  in  the  interest  of  the  South.  For  once  in  the  history  of  the 
world  the  failure  of  a  great  rebellion  was  to  work  no  real  harm  to  the 
rebels,  and  the  conquerors  were  expected  to  divest  themselves  of  the 
rights  and  the  duties  of  the  conquest.  The  settlement  of  these  irre- 
concilable theories  with  the  conditions  involved  was  the  matter  in 
dispute  between  Congress  and  the  President. 

The  remedial  measures  that  wrere  necessary  to  the  rehabilitation  of 
the  States  that  were  conquered,  but  still  rebellious,  and  the  forensic 
concomitants  of  the  remedial  legislation  extended  over  two  Con- 
gresses. The  whole  period  was  a  tourney  of  Republican  champion- 
ship of  the  right,  in  an  arena  rendered  lurid  by  the  blood-red  glare 
of  a  false  Democratic  patriotism.  Every  measure  and  every  phase  of 
the  debates  brought  the  white  and  black  knights  of  the  Blended  Rose 
and  the  Burning  Mountain  into  bold  relief.  Mr.  Shellabarger  came, 
as  we  have  seen,  as  a  veritable  Sir  Galahad,  whose  snow-white  shield 
fitted  him  to  sit  in  the  "  Siege  Perilous."  He  was  the  most  moderate  of 
the  Republican  leaders,  and  held  the  Republican  majority  in  the  House 
intact  for  the  right,  not  because  he  was  the  ablest,  but  for  the  better 


THE   CONGRESS   AND   THE   PRESIDENT.  211 

reason  that  he  was  the  wisest  of  them  all.  Voorhees  was  the  Knight 
of  the  Lions.  Henry  Wilson  was  the  Knight  of  the  Rainbow,  not  be- 
cause of  his  gorgeous  raiment,  but  because  he  came  panoplied  with 
a  measure  that  wras  the  bow  of  promise  for  the  crushed  and  persecuted 
freednien.  "  I  have  no  desire  to  say  harsh  things  of  the  South,"  he 
said  in  introducing  the  bill  for  the  establishment  of  the  Freedmen's 
Bureau,  "  nor  of  the  men  who  have  been  engaged  in  the  Rebellion. 
I  do  not  ask  their  property  or  their  blood;  I  do  not  wish  to  disgrace 
or  degrade  them;  but  I  do  wish  that  they  shall  not  be  permitted 
to  disgrace,  degrade,  or  oppress  anybody  else.  I  offer  this  bill  as  a 
measure  of  humanity,  as  a  measure  that  the  needs  of  that  section  of 
the  country  imperatively  demand  at  our  hands.  I  believe  that  if  it 
should  pass  it  will  receive  the  sanction  of  nineteen-twentieths  of  the 
loyal  people  of  the  country.  Men 
may  differ  about  the  power  or  the 
expediency  of  giving  the  right  of  suf- 
frage to  the  negro;  but  how  any  hu- 
mane, just,  and  Christian  man  can  for 
a  moment  permit  the  laws  that  are 
on  the  statute  books  of  the  Southern 
States,  and  the  laws  now  pending 
before  their  Legislatures,  to  be  exe- 
cuted upon  men  whom  we  have  de- 
clared to  be  free,  I  can  not  compre- 
hend." 

The  debate  on  Mr.  Wilson's  bill  in 
the   Senate   called   out   another   dis- 
play    of    that     singular     inapposite-  HENRY  WILSON. 
ness   in    support    of    the    President's 

policy  that  was  the  most  remarkable  feature  of  the  epoch.  Willard 
Saulsbury,  of  Delaware,  rushed  into  the  affray  as  a  simple  'Prentice 
Knight — the  Sim  Tappertit  of  the  Senate.  He  headed  the  "  United 
Bull-dogs,"  and  led  them  against  the  "  tyrant  masters  "  in  the  Re- 
publican party,  when  he  pledged  to  the  President  "  the  support  of 
two  million  men  in  the  States  which  have  not  been  in  revolt,  and  who 
did  not  support  him  for  his  high  office."  Edgar  Cowan,  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, was  a  Carpet  Knight,  who  continued  to  kneel  to  the  slaveholder 
in  the  Senate,  after  Grant  and  Sherman  had  knocked  the  shackles 
from  the  slave  in  the  tented  field.  "  One  man  out  of  ten  thousand," 
said  Mr.  Cowan,  "  is  brutal  to  a  negro,  and  that  is  paraded  here  as  a 
type  of  the  whole  people  of  the  South;  whereas  nothing  is  said  of  the 
other  nine  thousand  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  men  who  treat  the 
negro  well."  Cowan  had  been  elected  to  the  Senate  as  a  Republican 


212 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 


with  the  record  of  a  Radical,  but  as  the  event  proved  he  was  without 
the  stability  to  stand  for  principle  and  the  party  against  patronage 
and  the  President.  With  Cowan  were  four  other  Republican  re- 
cusants— Doolittle,  of  Wisconsin;  Gratz  Brown,  of  Missouri;  Dixon, 
of  Connecticut,  and  Norton,  of  Minnesota.  It  is  not  surprising  that 
these  men  yielded  to  the  blandishments  of  the  Administration,  when 
it  is  remembered  that  Seward  was  the  power  behind  the  throne  in 
the  White  House,  and  that  Chase,  on  the  bench  of  the  Supreme  Court, 
was  giving  the  sanction  of  his  high  station  to  the  policy  of  the  Presi- 
dent. In  all  these  was  the  leaven  that  soon  lifted  them  out  of  the 
Republican  party  and  allied  them  with  a  faction  with  which  they 
could  have  no  natural  sympathy. 

The  great  measures  of  the  39th  Congress  were  the  establishment 

of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau,  the  Civil 
Rights  Bill,  the  Fourteenth  Amend- 
ment to  the  Constitution,  the  Recon- 
struction Act,  and  the  Tenure  of  Office 
Act. 

One  of  the  last  acts  of  the  38th 
Congress  was  the  establishment  of  a 
Freedmen's  Bureau.  It  soon  turned 
out  that  the  measure  was  premature 
in  its  adoption  and  inadequate  in 
its  provisions.  General  Oliver  O. 
Howard  was  appointed  Commission- 
er under  this  act  by  Secretary 
Stanton,  with  the  natural  result  that 
was  sure  to  accrue  to  any  one  who  at- 
tempted to  thwart  the  Southern  con- 
spiracy for  the  subjection  of  the 

blacks  —  reproach,  accusation,  calumny,  obloquy.  Howard  was  a 
man  of  irreproachable  character  and  great  ability.  His  record  as 
a  soldier  was  unusually  distinguished,  and  the  inflexibility  of  his 
courage  was  emphasized  by  an  empty  sleeve.  A  selfish  man  or  even  a 
prudent  one  would  have  declined  the  position.  The  duties  with  which 
the  Commissioner  was  charged  were  possible  of  execution  only  in  time 
of  war,  and  the  act  was  to  expire  in  one  year  from  the  end  of  the 
rebellion.  The  war  was  over  before  it  was  possible  to  put  it  into 
execution.  By  one  of  its  provisions  the  Commissioner  was  authorized, 
under  the  direction  of  the  President,  to  set  apart,  for  the  use  of  loyal 
refugees  and  freedmen,  such  tracts  of  land  within  the  insurrectionary 
States  as  were  abandoned,  or  to  which  the  United  States  Government 
had  acquired  title  by  confiscation,  sale,  or  otherwise.  Of  these 


GEN.    O.    O.    HOWARD. 


THE   CONGRESS   AND   THE   PRESIDENT.  213 

lands  a  tract  of  not  more  than  forty  acres  might  be  assigned  to 
every  male  citizen,  whether  refugee  or  freednian;  and  the  person  to 
whom  it  was  so  assigned  was  to  be  protected  in  the  use  and  enjoyment 
of  the  land  for  the  term  of  three  years.  These  provisions,  it  was  said 
at  the  time,  induced  every  negro  in  the  South  to  expect  "  forty  acres 
and  a  mule  "  as  a  gift  from  a  paternal  government.  But  for  the 
President's  policy  of  restoration  the  Bureau  might  have  been  able  to 
go  out  of  business  at  the  end  of  the  year,  or,  if  continued,  have  been 
charged  only  with  the  duty  of  affording  succor  to  the  indigent.  The 
false  hopes  of  speedy  independence  of  Congress  that  his  policy  gave 
to  the  Southern  States  led  to  the  legislative  enactments  that  pre- 
vented their  return  to  the  Union  during  Johnson's  administration, 
and  compelled  a  Supplemental  Act  for  the  protection  of  the  freedmeu. 
This  bill  was  more  comprehensive  and  far-reaching  than  the  previous 
act,  and  met  with  determined  opposition  from  the  Democrats  in  Con- 
gress, and  was  vetoed  by  the  President.  Because  of  some  imperfec- 
tions, it  failed  to  pass  over  the  veto  in  the  Senate.  The  Republicans 
who  had  voted  for  the  bill,  but  now  voted  to  sustain  the  President, 
were  Messrs.  Dixou,  Doolittle,  Morgan,  Norton,  and  Van  Winkle. 
The  course  of  Mr.  Morgan,  of  New  York,  and  Mr.  Van  Winkle,  of  West 
Virginia,  was  at  first  the  occasion  of  some  uneasiness.  It  was  feared 
that  Mr.  Morgan  had  yielded  to  the  persuasions  of  Secretary  Seward, 
and  that  Mr.  Van  Winkle  had  come  under  the  reactionary  influences 
that  were  known  to  be  active  in  his  State.  A  bill  not  so  comprehen- 
sive, but  with  enlarging  provisions  to  make  the  existing  act  more 
effective,  originating  in  the  House,  was  then  accepted  by  the  Senate. 
The  President  vetoed  this  measure  also,  but  it  was  passed  over  his 
veto  and  became  a  law.  There  was  a  great  outcry  against  the  Freed- 
men's  Bureau  all  over  the  country  on  the  part  of  the  Democrats,  who 
had  proclaimed  the  war  a  failure  two  years  before,  and  who  were  now 
eager  to  sustain  the  South  in  the  re-enslavement  of  the  negroes.  This 
opposition  was  especially  exerted  to  prevent  the  election  of  the  Re- 
publican candidates  for  Congress  in  I860,  but  the  country  was  in  no 
temper  to  accept  the  policy  of  the  President  and  his  Democratic 
allies. 

The  Civil  Rights  bill,  designed  to  confer  upon  the  manumitted 
slaves  of  the  South  the  civil  rights  enjoyed  by  the  white  man,  except 
the  right  of  suffrage,  to  give  them  equality  in  all  things  before  the 
law,  and  to  nullify  every  State  law,  wherever  existing,  that  should  be 
in  conflict  with  the  enlarged  provisions  of  the  Federal  statute,  was 
passed  by  the  Senate,  with  only  two  Republicans,  Messrs.  Doolittle 
and  Norton,  voting  against  it,  and  by  the  House,  without  a  dissenting 
Republican  vote.  The  President  exercised  his  right  of  veto,  but  the 


214 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 


bill  was  speedily  passed  in  spite  of  the  President's  objections.  When 
the  vote  was  about  to  be  taken  in  the  Senate  an  incident  occurred 
that  shows  the  temper  of  the  time.  Mr.  Cowan  asked  that  the  vote 
be  deferred  as  a  courtesy  to  Mr.  Dixon,  of  Connecticut,  and  Mr. 
Wright,  of  New  Jersey,  who  were  ill.  The  Democratic  Senators  were 
eager  for  the  courtesy,  but  it  was  opposed  with  a  greater  show  of 
feeling  than  is  usual  in  the  Senate.  "  If  the  President  of  the  United 
States,"  said  bluff  Ben  Wade,  "  can  impose  his  authority  upon  a 
question  like  this  and  can  by  a  veto  compel  Congress  to  submit  to  his 
dictation,  he  is  an  emperor  and  a  despot.  Because  I  believe  the  great 
question  of  Congressional  power  and  authority  is  at  stake  here,  I 
yield  to  no  importunities  on  the  other  side.  I  feel  myself  justified  in 

taking  every  advantage  which  the 
Almighty  has  put  in  my  hands  to 
defend  the  power  and  authority  of 
this  body.  I  will  not  yield  to  these 
appeals  of  comity  on  a  question 
like  this,  but  I  will  tell  the  Presi- 
dent and  everybody  else  that  if 
God  Almighty  has  stricken  a  mem- 
ber of  this  body  so  that  he  can  not 
be  here  to  uphold  the  dictation  of 
a  despot,  I  thank  Him  for  it,  and  I 
will  take  every  advantage  of  it  I 
can." 

The  Senate  adjourned,  notwith- 
standing Mr.  Wade's  excited  ap- 
peal, but  when  the  vote  was  taken 
on  the  following  day  Mr.  Dixon 
was  still  absent.  The  vote  was  only 
33  to  15.  If  Mr.  Dixon  had  been  in 

his  seat  and  Mr.  Stockton,  of  New  Jersey,  had  not  been  unseated,  the 
necessary  two-thirds  could  not  have  been  obtained.  Mr.  Van  Winkle 
again  voted  with  the  little  band  of  Republican  dissidents,  and  there 
was  one  new  defection — Mr.  Lane,  of  Kansas.  Lane's  defection  was 
not  only  alarming  to  the  Republicans,  but  it  was  very  sad  in  its  con- 
sequences. General  Lane  had  a  remarkable  history.  Both  he  and 
his  father,  Amos  Lane,  had  been  Democratic  Representatives  in  Con- 
gress from  Indiana.  James  H.  Lane  was  at  the  head  of  an  Indiana 
regiment  of  volunteers  at  the  battle  of  Buena  Vista,  and  as  a  Douglas 
Democrat,  afterward,  his  ardor  carried  him  to  Kansas  during  the 
exciting  conflict  on  that  battleground  for  slavery.  No  one  contrib- 
uted more  toward  making  Kansas  a  Free  State,  and  his  services  were 


JAMES    H     LANE. 


THE   CONGRESS   AND   THE   PRESIDENT.  215 

rewarded  by  his  election  to  the  United  States  Senate  when  Kansas 
was  admitted  into  the  Union.  Mr.  Lincoln's  administration  had  no 
bolder  champion,  and  slavery  no  more  inveterate  enemy.  He  must 
have  labored  under  a  temporary  aberration  when  he  voted  to  sustain 
the  President's  veto.  "  The  mistake  has  been  made,"  he  said,  sor- 
rowfully, soon  after  his  vote  was  given.  "  I  would  give  all  I  possess 
if  it  were  undone."  Afterward  his  mind  gave  way  altogether,  and  he 
committed  suicide,  July  11,  1866. 

In  the  House  the  strength  of  the  Democratic  opposition  \vas  in- 
creased from  36  to  41,  but  the  Administration  Republicans  never 
became  formidable. 

The  joint  resolution  reported  from  the  Committee  on  Reconstruc- 
tion proposed  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution  which  embraced 
four  propositions:  (1)  A  definition  and  safeguard  of  citizenship;  (2)  a 
basis  of  representation  in  Congress  that  would  not  allow  the  white 
men  of  the  South  an  apportionment  based  on  four  and  one-half  mil- 
lions of  disfranchised  negroes;  (3)  restraint  of  the  pardoning  power  in 
the  qualification  of  Senators  and  Representatives  in  Congress,  Elec- 
tors of  President  and  Vice-President,  and  civil  and  military  officers 
of  the  United  States;  and  (4)  the  inviolability  of  the  national  debt,  and 
security  against  the  assumption  of  any  debts  incurred  in  aid  of  in- 
surrection or  rebellion  against  the  United  States,  or  claim  for  the  loss 
or  emancipation  of  any  slave. 

The  debate  on  these  propositions  in  both  Houses,  especially  on 
that  relating  to  the  basis  of  representation,  was  elaborate 
and  able,  but  it  has  no  great  historical  interest.  In  the  Sen- 
ate the  lead  was  taken  by  Mr.  Fessenden.  Mr.  Sunmer,  as  usual,  in- 
dulged himself  in  a  disquisition  of  learned  length  and  thundering 
sound,  but  was  more  than  usually  inapt  in  practical  statesmanship. 
He  was  for  universal  suffrage  before  it  was  clear  that  it  was  either 
desirable  or  necessary.  It  would  be  impossible  to  follow  the  sugges- 
tions, objections,  and  amendments  affecting  these  four  propositions, 
except  in  great  detail,  which  would  be  tedious  and  not  germane  to  the 
purpose  of  this  history.  The  Fourteenth  Amendment,  as  adopted,  is 
the  real  beginning  of  its  effect  upon  the  Republican  party  and  subse- 
quent legislation.  These  will  be  seen  in  the  Reconstruction  acts 
adopted  before  the  close  of  the  39th  and  in  the  40th  Congress. 

The  first  State  to  ratify  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  was  Connecti- 
cut, June  30,  1866 — precisely  a  fortnight  after  its  submission.  New 
Hampshire  followed  on  the  7th  of  July,  and  Tennessee  twelve  days 
later.  The  result  was  that  Tennessee  wras  restored  to  her  place  in 
the  Union  by  joint  resolution,  and  her  Senators  and  Representatives 
admitted  to  their  seats  before  the  adjournment  of  Congress  on  the 


216 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 


28th  of  July.  In  the  other  ten  of  the  insurrectionary  States  the 
amendment  was  rejected. 

Two  days  after  the  adjournment  of  Congress  occurred  the  savage 
political  massacre  in  New  Orleans.  The  Convention  to  revise  the 
Constitution  of  Louisiana  in  1864  had  been  called  to  reassemble  by 
its  president.  The  purpose  was  to  submit  a  new  Constitution  to  the 
people  of  the  State  for  their  approval.  The  right  of  the  Convention 
to  do  this  was  probably  imaginary,  but  it  was  a  question  for  the 

courts  and  not  for  a  mob.  A  mob 
undertook  to  settle  it  by  assassi- 
nation. About  forty  persons  were 
killed  outright  and  fully  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  were  wounded, 
many  of  them  mortally.  The  riot 
was  the  result  of  the  connivance 
of  the  MaA'or,  and  it  had  the  par- 
ticipation of  the  police.  General 
Sheridan,  in  command  of  the  mili- 
tary department,  reported  official- 
ly that  "  the  killing  was  in  a  man 
ner  so  unnecessary  and  atrocious 
as  to  compel  me  to  say  it  wras  mur- 
der." Other  parts  of  the  South 
were  emulous  of  the  bloody  dis- 
tinction in  which  New  Orleans 

had  pre-eminence.  The  negro  race,  in  widely  scattered  communities, 
was  subjected  to  unprovoked  butchery.  This  defiance  of  its  authority 
left  only  one  way  open  to  Congress — military  government.  A  wave  of 
indignation  swept  over  the  North  that  was  voiced  in  the  autumn 
elections. 

In  the  40th  Congress  the  House  of  Representatives,  chosen  in  18G6, 
was  Republican  three  to  one.  The  supremacy  of  the  Republican  party 
over  the  combined  forces  of  the  administration  in  the  loyal  States 
was  overwhelming  and  enduring.  In  New  York  the  desertion  of  Sew- 
ard  and  Weed  and  Raymond  was  sternly  rebuked  by  the  re-election 
of  Governor  Fenton.  In  New  York  City  the  Tribune,  with  fresh  vigor 
in  its  editorial  direction,  supplanted  the  Times  as  the  organ  of  the 
party.  In  the  State,  Roscoe  Conkling  obtained  a  supremacy  that  he 
maintained  until  he  rashly  threw  it  away  in  a  quarrel  with  Garfield's 
administration.  In  Pennsylvania  General  Cameron,  flaunted  by  the 
Curtin  faction,  which  had  always  marched  in  the  rear  in  all  great 
popular  movements  affecting  slavery,  regained  the  leadership  and 
held  it  until  his  political  enemies  in  the  party  sought  and  found  a 


GEN.    PHILIP    H.    SHERIDAN. 


THE   CONGRESS   AND   THE   PRESIDENT. 


217 


refuge  with  the  rank  and  file  of  the  Democracy.  In  Ohio,  in  Indiana, 
and  in  Illinois,  in  all  the  States  of  the  Northwest,  the  Republican 
victories  were  repetitions  of  the  triumphs  of  1864.  The  President's 
policy  was  rebuked  with  a  unanimity  and  resentment  never  before 
exhibited  by  the  people  in  the  condemnation  of  a  recreant  Adminis- 
tration. 

The  40th  Congress  may  be  considered  a  virtual  continuation  of  its 
predecessor,  for  provision  had  been 
made  for  its  assembling'  immediately 
upon  the  adjournment  of  the  39th  Con- 
gress. Some  changes  had  occurred  in 
the  composition  of  both  Houses,  but 
there  was  no  change  in  the  determined 
attitude  of  the  majority  toward  the 
President  and  the  South.  The  Senate 
received  some  new  members,  who  were 
destined  to  exert  a  powerful  influence 
over  Congress  and  the  county.  Roscoe 
Conkling  succeeded  Ira  Harris  from 
New  York;  Simon  Cameron  took  the 
place  previously  filled  by  the  eccentric- 
Edgar  Cowan  for  Pennsylvania;  Oliver 
P.  Morton  replaced  Henry  S.  Lane,  of  In- 
diana, and  Justin  S.  Morrill,  of  Ver- 
mont, began  a  career  that  was  to  exceed  {\  -\j 
in  length  Benton's  thirty  years  in  the 

Senate.  George  F.  Edmunds  had  succeeded  Solomon  Foot  in  the  pre- 
vious Congress.  Other  new  Senators  were  James  W.  Patterson,  of  New 
Hampshire;  Charles  D.  Drake,  as  the  successor  of  B.  Gratz  Brown,  of 
Missouri;  Cornelius  Cole,  of  California,  and  Henry  W.  Corbett,  of  Ore- 
gon. In  the  House  the  military  element  had  noteworthy  additions. 
General  John  A.  Logan  came  back  from  Illinois,  and  General  Cadwal- 
ader  C.  Washburn  from  Wisconsin.  A  distinguished  Union  soldier  was 
a  Representative  from  Iowa — General  Grenville  M.  Dodge.  General 
Benjamin  F.  Butler,  of  Massachusetts,  appeared  in  the  House  for  the 
first  time.  One  of  the  Representatives  from  Indiana  was  Morton  C. 
Hunter,  who  had  been  colonel  of  an  Indiana  regiment  and  commanded 
a  brigade  in  Sherman's  Atlanta  campaign.  Other  Representatives 
with  good  war  records  wrere  John  Coburn,  of  Indiana,  and  Austin 
Blair,  the  War  Governor  of  Michigan.  Norman  B.  Judd,  Lincoln's 
early  friend,  represented  one  of  the  Chicago  districts.  Of  the  new 
Republican  members,  who  had  yet  to  win  their  spurs  but  became 
prominent,  the  most  noteworthy  were  John  A.  Peters,  of  Maine; 


218  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

Jacob  H.  Ela,  of  New  Hampshire;  Worthington  C.  Smith,  of  Vermont; 
Henry  H.  Starkweather,  of  Connecticut;  William  H.  Robertson  and 
Dennis  McCarthy,  of  New  York;  George  A.  Halsey,  of  New  Jersey; 
Henry  L.  Cake,  of  Pennsylvania,  and  Green  B.  Raum,  of  Illinois. 
Among  the  Democrats  the  only  one  to  win  distinction  was  James  B. 
Beck,  of  Kentucky.  Henry  J  .Raymond  had  wrecked  his  career  in 
Congress,  and  there  were  no  Administration  Republicans  except 
Charles  G.  Phelps,  of  Maryland,  and  Thomas  E.  Noel,  of  Missouri. 

The  President's  last  message  to  the  39th  Congress  was  more  con- 
ciliatory in  tone  than  had  been  anticipated,  but  he  showed  no  appre- 
ciation of  the  hostility  to  his  policy  in  the  North,  and  restated  his 
case  as  if  it  was  still  a  living  issue.  His  position  only  excited  derision. 
His  course  had  the  effect  of  preventing  the  reinstatement  of  such  of 
the  Southern  States  as  would  have  been  willing  to  follow  the  example 
of  Tennessee.  Alabama  would  have  reconsidered  the  rejection  of  the 
Fourteenth  Amendment,  but  Mr.  Johnson  encouraged  the  rebel  ele- 
ment to  continue  its  resistance.  The  result  of  this  persistence  was 
the  Reconstruction  bill  reported  by  Mr.  Stevens,  February  6,  1867. 
It  was  the  first  really  drastic  measure  proposed  for  the  government 
of  the  unreconstructed  South.  The  ten  disorganized  States  were  di- 
vided into  five  military  districts.  The  civil  power  was  practically  ob- 
literated. It  was  a  measure  that  should  have  been  adopted  instead 
of  the  Administration  policy  at  the  close  of  the  war,  but  the  same  in- 
fluences that  were  against  a  special  session  of  Congress  in  1865  were 
still  operative  in  1867.  Some  true  and  tried  Republicans  were  doubt- 
ful of  its  utility  even  when  the  necessity  for  it  became  imperative.  It 
wras  not  passed  without  hesitation  and  reluctance.  As  the  Congress 
neared  its  close,  it  looked  as  if  all  legislation  on  the  subject  of  Recon- 
struction would  be  defeated.  All  the  Republican  differences  were 
finally  adjusted,  howrever,  and  with  some  modifications  the  bill  was 
passed.  The  President  returned  it  with  his  veto.  His  argument 
against  placing  the  States  under  military  rule  was  cogently  urged, 
and  if  the  Administration  and  Congress  had  been  more  in  accord  it 
might  have  proved  effective.  The  veto  had  been  delayed  until  the  last 
day  permitted  by  the  Constitution.  It  did  not  reach  the  House,  in 
which  the  bill  had  originated,  until  Saturday,  and  Congress  would 
adjourn  on  Monday  at  noon.  The  minority  wras  determined  to  prevent 
its  passage  by  dilatory  motions,  or  "  talking  against  time."  In  spite 
of  the  opposition  the  rules  were  suspended  and  the  bill  was  passed  by 
135  ayes  to  48  noes.  The  Senate  concurred  by  38  ayes  to  10  noes. 
The  first  of  the  drastic  Reconstruction  measures  was  a  law. 

Equally  hurried  with  the  passage  of  the  Reconstruction  bill  over 
the  Presidential  veto  was  the  action  of  Congress  on  the  Tenure-of -Office 


THE    CONGRESS   AND   THE   PRESIDENT.  219 

bill.  It  was  a  measure  previously  unknown  in  the  usage  of  the  Fed- 
eral Government.  It  grew  out  of  the  excitement  and  bitterness  inci- 
dent to  the  conflict  between  Congress  and  the  President  and  a  fear 
of  the  aggressions  of  the  Executive.  It  was  not  a  measure  in  conso- 
nance with  the  traditions  or  tendencies  of  the  Republican  party,  and 
it  was  adopted  with  doubts  and  misgivings.  It  was  not  passed  with 
any  feeling  of  satisfaction  or  pride  by  the  party,  and  when  the  Ad- 
ministration ceased  to  vex  the  Congress  it  was  quickly  repealed,  be- 
cause it  was  felt  to  be  personally  degrading  to  the  incumbent  of  the 
Presidential  office. 

After  the  adjournment  of  the  39th  Congress  the  40th  Congress  was 
speedily  organized.  Mr.  Colfax  was  again  elected  Speaker.  The 
principal  business  of  the  session  was  to  perfect  the  Reconstruction 
Act  of  the  previous  Congress.  This  provided  for  impartial  suffrage, 
but  it  was  lacking  in  the  detail  necessary  to  its  practical  operation. 
The  first  of  the  Supplementary  bills  was  passed  on  the  19th  of  March. 
This  bill  declared  that  "  if  the  Constitution  shall  be  ratified  by  a 
majority  of  the  votes  of  the  registered  electors  qualified  to  vote,  at 
least  one-half  of  all  the  registered  voters  voting  upon  the  question,  a 
copy  of  the  same,  duly  certified,  shall  be  transmitted  to  the  President 
of  the  United  States,  who  shall  forthwith  transmit  the  same  to  Con- 
gress, and  if  it  shall  appear  to  Congress  that  the  election  was  one  at 
which  all  the  registered  and  qualified  electors  in  the  State  had  an 
opportunity  to  vote  freely  and  without  restraint,  fear,  or  the  influence 
of  fraud,  and  if  Congress  shall  be  satisfied  that  such  Constitution 
meets  the  approval  of  a  majority  of  all  the  qualified  electors  in  the 
State,  and  if  the  said  Constitution  shall  be  declared  by  Congress 
to  be  in  conformity  with  the  provisions  of  the  act  to  which  this  is 
supplementary,  and  the  other  provisions  of  said  act  shall  have  been 
complied  with  and  the  said  Constitution  shall  have  been  approved  by 
Congress,  the  State  shall  be  declared  entitled  to  representation,  and 
Senators  and  Representatives  shall  be  admitted  therefrom  as  therein 
provided." 

When  Congress  adjourned  on  the  30th  of  March  it  wras  for  a  recess 
until  the  3d  of  July.  In  the  meantime  Henry  Stanbery,  who  had  be- 
come Attorney-General  upon  the  reconstruction  of  the  Cabinet  in 
1866,  gave  two  opinions  intended  to  neutralize  the  effects  of  both 
acts.  The  result  was  that  the  July  session  was  devoted  to  the  passage 
of  a  second  Supplementary  Act,  again  over  the  President's  veto,  to 
meet  the  objections  and  obstructions  suggested  by  the  Attorney- 
General.  With  this  act  the  Reconstruction  measures  of  Congress  were 
complete,  and  General  Grant  was  invested  with  an  authority  over 
the  recalcitrant  States  that  was  independent  of  the  will  or  power  of 
the  President. 


220  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

The  Military  Governors  assigned  to  the  new  and  responsible  duties 
under  the  Reconstruction  acts  were  Major-General  Schofield  for  the 
district  of  Virginia;  Major-General  Sickles  for  the  district  of  North 
and  South  Carolina;  Major-General  Pope  for  the  district  of  Georgia, 
Alabama,  and  Florida;  Major-General  Ord  for  the  district  of  Missis- 
sippi and  Arkansas,  and  Major-General  Sheridan  for  the  district  of 
Louisiana  and  Texas.  The  President  was  hostile  to  Pope,  Sickles, 
and  Sheridan,  and  through  his  intervention  they  were  replaced  by 
Meade,  Canby,  and  Hancock,  respectively.  Under  these  military 
rulers  the  real  work  of  Reconstruction  in  the  rebellious  States  wras 
begun  and  carried  forward  to  completion.  Arkansas  having  ratified 
the  Fourteenth  Amendment  to  the  Constitution  and  complied  with 
the  provisions  of  the  Reconstruction  acts,  a  bill  was  introduced  in 
the  House  by  Mr.  Stevens,  May  7,  1868,  to  admit  the  State  to  repre- 
sentation in  Congress.  Similar  measures  soon  followed  for  the  States 
of  North  Carolina,  South  Carolina,  Louisiana,  Georgia,  and  Florida. 
All  these  bills  were  vetoed  by  the  President  and  passed  over  his  veto. 
Virginia,  Mississippi,  and  Texas  wrere  not  restored  until  1870. 

With  the  return  of  the  States  to  the  Union  under  the  terms  of  Con- 
gress military  government  ceased,  and  the  period  of  Reconstruction 
came  to  an  end. 


V^dAAVA^v 


V. 

IMPEACHMENT. 

Character  and  Acts  of  President  Johnson — Cabinet  Changes — The 
Philadelphia  Convention  of  1866 — The  Arm-in- Arm  Fiasco — Mr. 
Raymond's  Last  Effort — Northern  and  Southern  Conventions- 
Leaders  For  and  Against  the  Administration — James  Speed- 
Address  of  the  Southern  Loyalists — "  Swinging  Around  the 
Circle  " — The  President's  Stump  Speeches — Soldiers'  Conven- 
tion at  Cleveland — Soldiers'  and  Seamen's  Convention  at  Pitts- 
burg — Efforts  at  Impeachment  in  Congress — Removal  of  Secre- 
tary Stautou — The  President  Impeached  by  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives— Tried  by  the  Senate — The  Managers  on  Behalf  of 
the  House — The  Counsel  for  the  President — Impeachment  Fails 
—A  Mistaken  Remedy. 

HE  impeachment  of  President  Johnson  by  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives was  the  closing  drama  of  the  stirring  epoch 
of  Reconstruction.  The  undertaking  was  passionate  and 
ill-advised,  but  the  President  must  take  a  share  of  the 
blame  because  of  his  infirmities  of  temper,  his  want  of  tact,  and  his 
persistent  wrong-headedness.  He  inspired  not  only  political  enmities, 
but  intense  personal  dislike.  His  bald  egotism  and  coarse  invective 
were  the  real  foundations  of  the  detestation  in  which  he  was  held  by 
the  people.  His  bold  assumption  of  the  right  to  restore  the  rebellious 
States  to  their  places  in  the  Union  without  consulting  the  Congress, 
his  inflexible  adhesion  to  his  own  policy  as  the  only  plan  of  Restora- 
tion, and  his  unexampled  exercise  of  the  veto  power  made  even  even- 
tempered  men  in  the  House  and  Senate  indignant,  and  passionate  men 
his  implacable  foes.  His  words  as  well  as  his  acts  were  his  constant 
accusers.  In  all  his  personal  attributes  he  was  the  opposite  of  Lincoln, 
the  beloved,  and  this  made  him  to  be  hated  all  the  more  fiercely  when 
he  claimed  that  he  had  inherited  his  policy  of  Reconstruction  from 
his  lamented  predecessor.  It  was  impossible  that  a  man  of  his  coarse 
moral  and  intellectual  fiber,  his  egregious  vanity  and  smirking  am- 
bition, and  his  dogged  persistence  and  devious  methods  should  escape 
execration. 

Another  disadvantage  from  which  Mr.  Johnson  suffered,  from  the  be- 
ginning to  the  end  of  his  term,  was  due  to  the  manner  in  which  he  came 
to  his  high  office.  There  is  an  ingrained  prejudice  in  the  hearts  of  the 


222  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

American  people  against  Vice-Presidents  who  become  President.  This 
prejudice  owes  its  existence,  no  doubt,  to  the  conflict  between  John 
Tyler  and  his  party  after  the  death  of  the  first  President  Harrison. 
Tyler's  quarrel  with  his  Cabinet  and  then  with  his  party,  made  the 
office  ominous  for  all  those  who  came  after  him  when  its  possibilities 
are  realized.  Mr.  Filluiore  was  almost  as  unfortunate  as  Mr.  Tyler. 
Unlike  Tyler,  Fillmore  did  not  find  a  refuge  in  the  Democratic  party, 
but  he  disappointed  the  expectations  of  the  men  who  nominated  and 
elected  him,  reversed  the  policy  of  his  predecessor,  and  divided  his 
party  and  exposed  it  to  defeat  and  disruption.  Harrison's  Secretary 
of  State,  Daniel  Webster,  adhered  to  Tyler's  administration  to  the 
detriment  of  his  own  prestige,  while  Clay  organized  the  Whig  party 
against  the  President.  Webster  again  became  Secretary  of  State  in 
Fillmore's  administration,  but  even  with  the  sympathy  and  assistance 
of  Clay  he  was  unable  to  protect  it  against  the  assaults  of  Seward 
and  the  young  men  among  the  Whigs.  Now  Seward,  as  Secretary  of 
State  in  Johnson's  administration,  was  to  drink  draughts  as  bitter  as 
those  he  had  administered  to  Webster  fifteen  years  before.  The  por- 
tents of  an  unfortunate  Presidency,  that  Tyler  and  Fillmore  had  left 
as  a  warning  to  Johnson,  were  not  long  in  asserting  themselves  with 
all  their  dread  significance. 

Still  another  danger  to  which  the  third  of  the  accidental  Presidents 
was  exposed  was  the  eagerness  of  Andrew  Johnson  to  emulate  An- 
drew Jackson.  The  two  men  were  alike  only  in  the  names  their 
mothers  gave  them.  Andre\v  Jackson  wras  a  man  not  of  words,  but  of 
action.  Andrew  Johnson  was  fluent  of  speech,  but  not  quick  to  act. 
Jackson  was  impulsive  as  well  as  tenacious.  Johnson  was  tenacious, 
but  not  impulsive.  Flatterers,  however,  played  upon  the  weakness 
of  the  second  Andrew,  and  convinced  him  that  he  had  all  the  heroic 
qualities  it  was  the  fashion  to  impute  to  the  first.  Johnson  was  ready 
to  believe  that  he  could  treat  Stevens  and  Congress  as  Jackson  treated 
Riddle  and  the  Bank — that  he  could  bring  South  Carolina  back  into 
the  Union  with  a  hand  as  mighty  as  Jackson  had  shown  in  holding 
her  there  against  the  nullifiers.  The  delusion  would  have  been  amus- 
ing if  it  had  not  proved  so  disastrous. 

It  was,  of  course,  impossible  that  President  Johnson  should  pursue 
the  policy  that  he  had  marked  out  for  his  Administration  with  a 
Cabinet  inherited  from  President  Lincoln.  The  first  break  came  on 
July  1,  1866,  when  William  Dennison,  the  Postmaster-General,  re- 
signed. Dennison  made  no  secret  of  the  cause  of  his  retirement — his 
inability  to  accept  Johnson's  plan  of  Reconstruction.  He  was  suc- 
ceeded by  Alexander  W.  Randall,  of  Wisconsin,  who  was  a  rather 
blatant  supporter  of  the  President's  policy.  A  week  later  James 


IMPEACHMENT.  223 

Speed  resigned  as  Attorney-General,  and  was  succeeded  by  Henry 
Staubery,  of  Ohio.  Speed  resigned  because  the  Administration  was 
rapidly  drifting  toward  the  Democratic  party,  and  Stanbery  accepted 
for  the  same  reason.  Speed's  resignation  was  followed  by  that  of 
James  Harlan,  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  and  the  vacancy  was  filled  by 
the  appointment  of  Orville  H.  Browning,  a  Republican  with  Demo- 
cratic sympathies.  This  left  of  the  original  Lincoln  Cabinet  only 
Seward  and  Welles,  with  Stanton,  the  Secretary  of  War,  and  McCul- 
loch,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  Stanton  and  Johnson  wrere  at 
daggers'  points,  and  McCulloch  was  not  a  partisan.  If  Stanton  had 
resigned  in  1806,  it  is  possible  that  the  impeachment,  of  which  his 
removal  was  the  provoking  cause  two  years  later,  would  have  come 
earlier  and  with  greater  effect. 

The  inciting  cause  of  the  Cabinet  crisis  was  the  determination  to 
form  an  Administration  party  in  conjunction  with  the  Northern  Dem- 
ocrats and  the  Southern  Restorationists.  It  took  shape  in  what  was 
called  the  "  arm-in-arm  convention,"  which  met  in  Philadelphia,  Au- 
gust 14, 1866.  It  was  the  intention  to  make  it  a  very  imposing  demon- 
stration of  Administration  Republicans  and  all  shades  of  Democrats, 
North  and  South.  The  number  of  prominent  Republicans  who  par- 
ticipated was  not  great.  New  York,  through  the  influence  of  Secre- 
tary Seward,  had  the  strongest  and  most  noteworthy  delegation,  the 
representatives  including  Thurlow  Weed,  Henry  J.  Raymond,  John 
A.  Dix,  Marshall  ().  Roberts,  and  Robert  S.  Hale.  Three  Administra- 
tion Senators — Dixon,  Cowan,  and  Doolittle — and  two  of  the  new 
members  of  the  Cabinet — Randall  and  Browning — were  active  in  the 
movement,  and  participated  in  the  Convention.  Montgomery  Blair 
consented  to  become  a  delegate.  Democrats  wrho  had  been  famous 
for  their  virulence  during  the  war  attended  in  such  numbers  that 
the  Convention  was  described  as  a  "  nest  of  copperheads."  Among 
the  men  known  chiefly  for  their  violent  opposition  to  the  war  were 
Clement  L.  Vallandigham,  of  Ohio;  George  W.  Wroodward,  Francis 
W.  Hughes,  and  James  Campbell,  of  Pennsylvania;  Fernando  and 
Benjamin  Wood,  and  James  Brooks,  of  New  York,  and  Edward  J. 
Phelps,  of  Vermont.  All  of  these,  and  many  others  in  the  Conven- 
tion, had  been  as  vicious  as  Vallandigham  in  denouncing  President 
Lincoln,  but  Vallandigham  was  made  the  scapegoat  for  the  sins  of  the 
other  Peace  Democrats.  Some  of  his  fellow-conspirators  refused  to  sit 
with  him,  and  he  consented  to  withdraw.  Two  years  later  he  was 
conspicuous  in  the  Democratic  National  Convention  at  New  York. 

There  were  delegates  from  every  Southern  State,  and  it  was  re- 
solved to  emphasize  the  national  character  of  the  assemblage  by  a 
striking  spectacle  of  the  reunion  of  the  North  and  South.  A  building 


224  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

called  the  "  Wigwam  "  had  been  specially  adapted  for  the  use  of  the 
Convention,  and  it  was  agreed  that  the  delegates  should  enter  this 
vast  auditorium  by  a  joint  procession  of  the  States  of  the  two  sections, 
arm  in  arm.  Massachusetts  and  South  Carolina,  typified  by  General 
Darius  N.  Couch  and  ex-Speaker  James  L.  Orr,  were  placed  in  the 
lead.  This  spectacular  exhibition  was  mercilessly  ridiculed  in  the 
ensuing  campaign.  The  "  Wigwam  "  became  "  Noah's  Ark,"  and  it 
was  said  that  there  wrent  in,  two  and  two  with  Noah  into  the  ark,  "  of 
clean  beasts,  and  of  beasts  that  are  not  clean,  and  of  fowls,  and  of 
everything  that  creepeth  upon  the  earth."  The  great  purpose  of  the 
Convention  was  to  insist  upon  the  right  of  every  State  to  representa- 
tion in  Congress,  but  with  the  fatality  that  is  apt  to  attend  the  efforts 
of  very  clever  men,  Mr.  Raymond  in  his  speech  carried  his  argument 
to  its  logical  sequence. 

"  It  is  alleged,"  he  said,  "  that  the  con- 
dition of  the  Southern  States  and  people  is 
not  such  as  renders  safe  their  readmission 
to  a  share  in  the  government  of  the  coun- 
try; that  they  are  still  disloyal  in  sentiment 
and  purpose;  and  that  neither  the  honor, the 
credit,  nor  the  interest  of  the  Nation  would 
be  safe  if  they  were  readmitted  to  a  share  in 
its  councils.  .  .  .  WTe  have  no  right  for 
such  reasons  to  deny  to  any  portion  of  the 
States  or  people  rights  expressly  conferred 
upon  them  b}^  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  and  we  have  no  right  to  distrust  the 

GEN.  DARIUS  N.  COUCH.  purpose  or  the  abilit}^  of  the  people  of  the 

Union  to  protect  and  defend,  under  all  con- 
tingencies and  by  whatever  means  may  be  required,  its  honor  and  its 
welfare."  The  fat  was  in  the  fire.  The  Republican  masses  were  in  no 
mood  to  accept  a  sentiment  so  repugnant  to  humanity  and  justice  in 
the  existing  condition  of  the  South. 

The  arm-in-arm,  Noah's  Ark  Convention  was  followed  a  fortnight 
later  by  two  other  conventions  in  Philadelphia.  They  met  on 'the 
same  day  and  acted  in  unison,  although  they  were  separately  or- 
ganized. One  was  composed  entirely  of  loyalists  from  the  South— 
the  other  of  conspicuous  Republicans  in  the  North.  The  Southern 
convention  comprised  many  men  whose  loyalty  had  been  put  to  the 
double  test  of  personal  courage  and  personal  interest.  Johnson's 
Provisional  Governor,  Andrew  J.  Hamilton,  came  all  the  wray  from 
Texas;  Governor  Browrnlow — "Parson"  Brownlow7 — headed  the 
delegation  from  Tennessee;  John  Minor  Botts  was  one  of  the  delegates 


IMPEACHMENT.  225 

from  Virginia.  James  Speed,  of  Kentucky,  just  out  of  the  Cabinet, 
was  made  the  permanent  chairman.  In  the  Convention  there  were 
many  conspicuous  Republicans  from  the  border  States  besides  Mr. 
Speed — the  venerable  Rev.  Dr.  Robert  J.  Breckinridge,  of  Kentucky; 
Senator  Creswell  and  Francis  Thomas,  of  Maryland;  Governor  Bore- 
man  and  Nathan  Goff,  of  West  Virginia;  and  Governor  Fletcher,  of 
Missouri.  In  the  two  conventions  was  a  number  of  the  leading  editors 
of  the  country — Horace  Greeley,  of  the  New  York  Tribune;  John  W. 
Forney,  of  the  Philadelphia  Press;  C.  C.  Fulton,  of  the  Baltimore 
American;  Carl  Schurz,  then  of  the  Detroit  Post,  and  Frederick  Has- 
saurek,  of  Cincinnati,  being  the  most  prominent.  In  the  Northern 
Convention  were  nearly  all  the  conspicuous  Senators  and  Repre- 
sentatives in  Congress,  and  Governors  of  the  States,  besides  many 
eminent  citizens  who  never  took  an  active  part  in  politics  except  on 
the  highest  plane  of  patriotic  duty.  John  Ja- 
cob Astor  came  from  New  York,  and  E.  W. 
Fox  headed  a  delegation  of  business  men  from 
St.  Louis.  It  was  not  a  convention  of  Radicals, 
but  a  thorough  embodiment  of  the  spirit  of 
resistance  to  President  Johnson's  Restoration 
policy.  Governor  Curtin,  of  Pennsylvania, 
presided,  and  the  Convention  culminated  in  a 
mass  meeting  more  imposing  than  any  that 
had  ever  been  held  in  an  American  city. 

It  was  the  voice  of  the  Southern  loyalists 
that  it  was  most  necessary  should  be  heard  in 
the  loyal  North  in  repudiation  of  the  Johnson  JAMES  SPEED. 

Convention,  and  in  indicating  the  true  Repub- 
lican sentiment  in  the  South.  "  Why  was  that  convention  here?  " 
Mr.  Speed  asked,  on  taking  the  chair.  "  It  was  here  in  part  be- 
cause the  great  cry  came  up  from  the  white  man  of  the  South : 
My  Constitutional  and  my  natural  rights  are  denied  me;  and 
then  the  cry  came  up  from  the  black  man  of  the  South:  My 
Constitutional  and  my  natural  rights  are  denied  me.  These  com- 
plaints are  utterly  antagonistic,  the  one  to  the  other;  and  this 
convention  is  called  to  say  which  is  right.  Upon  that  ques- 
tion, if  upon  none  other,  as  Southern  men,  you  may  speak  out 
your  mind.  Speak  the  truth  as  you  feel  it;  speak  the  truth  as 
you  know  it;  speak  the  truth  as  you  love  permanent  peace,  as  you 
may  hope  to  establish  the  institutions  of  this  Government  so  that  our 
children  and  our  children's  children  shall  enjoy  a  peace  that  we  have 
not  known.  .  .  .  The  convention  to  which  I  have  referred,  as  I 
read  its  history,  came  here  to  simply  record  its  abject  submission  to 


226  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

the  commands  of  one  man.  That  convention  did  his  commands.  The 
loyal  Congress  of  the  United  States  had  refused  to  do  his  commands; 
and  whenever  you  have  a  Congress  that  does  not  absolutely  and 
firmly  refuse,  as  the  present  Congress  had  done,  to  merely  act  as  the 
recording  secretary  of  the  tyrant  at  the  White  House,  American 
liberty  is  gone  forever." 

The  address  adopted  by  the  Southern  Convention  was  a  bitter  and 
powerful  arraignment  of  the  President  and  the  Administration.  Its 
points  were  made  the  basis  of  the  appeals  to  the  Northern  voters  in 
the  ensuing  campaign  with  telling  effect,  and  the  canvass  itself  was 
one  of  excitement  and  enthusiasm  never  before  witnessed  except  in 
Presidential  years.  To  this  excitement  and  enthusiasm  another  fea- 
ture was  added  that  was  singularly  damaging  to  the  President's 
character  and  the  prestige  of  his  administration.  This  was  his  un- 
fortunate tour  of  the  Middle  and  Western  States  from  Washington, 
by  way  of  Philadelphia,  New  York,  and  Albany,  to  Chicago.  Other 
Presidents,  beginning  with  General  Washington,  had  made  tours  of 
the  country,  but  none  of  them  indulged  in  political  harangues  to  the 
people.  The  President  left  the  capital  on  the  28th  of  August,  accom- 
panied by  Secretaries  Welles  and  Randall,  Admiral  Farragut  and 
General  Grant.  Secretary  Sewrard  joined  the  party  in  New  York. 
Everywhere  great  crowds  met  these  eminent  gentlemen  to  demand 
a  speech  and  bandy  words  with  the  President  of  the  United  States. 
The  tour  was  a  succession  of  humiliating  spectacles,  but  the  most 
disgraceful  scene  occurred  at  Cleveland.  Mr.  Johnson  was  chaffed 
unmercifully  by  the  crowd,  and  he  replied  to  the  taunts  and  jeers  with 
coarse  wit  and  undignified  repartee.  In  a  stump  speaker  this  wrould 
have  been  well  enough,  and  even  effective;  in  the  President  it  was  not 
only  undignified,  but  hurtful  to  his  cause.  This  was  the  journey  that 
was  called  "  swinging  around  the  circle." 

One  reason  that  made  Cleveland  more  pronounced  in  its  ribald 
treatment  of  President  Johnson  than  the  other  cities  in  which  he  met 
the  crowds  on  equal  terms  was  its  selection  as  the  meeting  place  for  a 
Soldiers'  Convention  in  behalf  of  the  Administration.  This  Conven- 
tion, over  which  the  venerable  General  Wool  was  called  to  preside, 
met  on  the  17th  of  September.  Wool  was  very  old,  and  had  not  played 
an  important  part  in  the  war  because  of  his  age.  The  soldier  of  1812 
was  completely  out  of  his  reckoning  in  1866.  He  denounced  the 
Abolitionists  in  the  manner  of  the  officers  of  the  army  before  the  war, 
so  many  of  whom  fought  against  the  Union,  while  few  of  those  who 
were  true  to  the  flag  voted  as  they  fought.  The  most  conspicuous 
officers  of  the  regular  army  who  were  active  in  the  Convention  were 
Generals  Granger  and  Custer.  The  other  soldiers  who  had  been 


IMPEACHMENT. 


227 


Democrats  before  and  during  the  war  were  John  A.  McClernand,  of 
Illinois;  J.  W.  Denver,  of  California;  Willis  A.  Gorman,  of  Minnesota; 
James  B.  Steedman,  of  Ohio,  and  a  few  others.  The  most  noteworthy 
speech  in  the  Convention  was  made  by  General  Thomas  Ewing. 
Ewing's  defection  would  have  been  important  if  it  had  not  been  spo- 
radic, but  as  he  was  the  only  soldier  in  the  Convention  who  had  been  a 
genuine  Kepublican,  it  went  for  nothing.  Even  had  the  Convention 
shown  something  of  the  character  it  arrogated  to  itself  the  effect 
would  have  been  neutralized  by  an  incident  that  marked  the  proceed- 
ings. A  Confederate  Convention,  in  session  at  Memphis,  sent  a  tele- 
gram of  sympathy,  and  was  answered  with  thanks  for  the  "  mag- 
nanimity and  kindness  "  of  the 
message.  Nothing  was  so  cer- 
tain to  anger  the  Union  soldiers 
not  so  much  against  the  Presi- 
dent as  against  his  plan  of  Re- 
construction, and  the  response 
came  in  a  great  Soldiers'  and 
Seamen's  Convention  at  Pitts- 
burg,  on  the  26th  of  September. 
The  Pittsburg  Convention 
was  an  echo  from  a  hundred 
battlefields.  It  was  a  reunion  of 
the  line  and  staff,  the  rank  and 
file  of  all  the  Union  armies. 
Every  loyal  State  except  far- 
away Oregon  was  represented. 
Chamberlain  came  from  Maine 
and  Macauley  from  Indiana, 
Palmer  and  Farnsworth  from 
Illinois,  and  Schenck  and  Cox 
from  Ohio;  Cochrane,  Barnum,  and 


^  • 


GEN.    J.    D.    COX. 


Barlow    from    New    York, 


and  Geary,  Hartranft,  Negley,  and  Collis  from  Pennsylvania. 
A  private  soldier,  L.  Edwin  Dudley,  was  made  temporary  chair- 
man, and  when  the  intrepid  General  John  A.  Logan  was  un- 
able to  come  to  preside  as  permanent  president  the  Conven- 
tion turned  instinctively  to  the  gallant  General  Jacob  D.  Cox. 
It  was  a  convention  that  could  have  been  turned  into  an  army 
of  25,000  veterans  in  an  hour.  The  President  was  told  that  "  his 
attempt  to  fasten  his  scheme  of  Reconstruction  upon  the  country 
is  as  dangerous  as  it  is  unwise;  that  his  acts  in  sustaining  it  have 
retarded  the  restoration  of  peace  and  unity;  that  they  have  converted 
conquered  rebels  into  impudent  claimants  to  rights  which  they  have 


228  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

forfeited  and  to  places  which  they  have  desecrated.  If  the  President's 
scheme  be  consummated  it  would  render  the  sacrifice  of  the  Nation 
useless,  the  loss  of  our  buried  comrades  vain,  and  the  war  in  which 
we  have  so  gloriously  triumphed  a  failure,  as  it  was  declared  to  be  by 
President  Johnson's  present  associates  in  the  Democratic  National 
Convention  of  1864." 

The  President  on  his  tour  saw  an  aroused  nation,  but  this  state  of 
feeling  on  the  part  of  the  people  only  excited  him  to  greater  anger. 
The  result  of  the  elections  increased  his  fury.  He  not  only  exercised 
the  veto  power  constantly,  recklessly,  ruthlessly,  but  despite  the  fact 
that,  with  a  majority  in  Congress  that  wrould  last  as  long  as  the  Ad- 
ministration, and  great  enough  to  pass  all  vetoed  measures  in  spite  of 
the  President's  objections,  the  increasing  tension  could  only  have  con- 
sequences that  must  prove  disastrous.  Kumors  of  impeachment  be- 
came rife,  and  it  was  not  long  after  Congress  assembled  on  the  7th  of 
January,  1867,  when  it  became  apparent  that  these  rumors  were  not 
without  foundation.  Three  attempts  looking  to  that  end  were  made  on 
that  first  day  after  the  holiday  recess.  None  of  them  was  successful 
until  late  in  the  day,  but  Air.  Ashley,  of  Ohio,  rising  to  a  question  of 
privilege,  at  last  managed  to  project  the  matter  into  the  House.  "  I 
charge  him,"  said  that  earnest  and  impetuous  statesman,  "with  an 
usurpation  of  power  and  violation  of  law :  in  that  he  has  corruptly 
used  the  appointing  power;  in  that  he  has  corruptly  used  the 
pardoning  power;  in  that  lie  has  corruptly  used  the  veto  power; 
in  that  he  has  corruptly  disposed  of  the  public  property  of  the  United 
States;  in  that  he  has  corruptly  interfered  in  elections,  and  com- 
mitted acts  which  in  contemplation  of  the  Constitution  are  high 
crimes  and  misdemeanors." 

Ashley's  charges  were  gross  exaggerations,  and  in  any  other  state 
of  feeling  or  against  any  other  President  they  would  have  been  re- 
ceived with  scant  courtesy.  Under  the  conditions  that  prevailed 
they  were  referred  to  the  Judiciary  Committee,  which  reported  a 
mass  of  testimony,  most  of  it  unimportant,  and  left  the  question  to  the 
40th  Congress.  Moderate  Kepublicans  were  hopeful  this  would  be  the 
end  of  the  proceeding,  but  Ashley  again  pressed  the  matter,  express- 
ing the  hope  that  "  this  Congress  will  not  hesitate  to  do  its  duty  be- 
cause the  timid  in  our  ranks  hesitate."  It  is  doubtful  if  any  further 
action  would  have  been  taken  if  the  Democrats  had  remained  silent, 
but  the  two  talking  members  from  New  York,  James  Brooks  and  Fer- 
nando Wood,  made  characteristic  speeches,  and  the  question  became 
a  party  issue.  The  Judiciary  Committee  wa.s  charged  to  continue 
the  investigation,  and  the  work  of  taking  irrelevant  and  inconclusive 
testimony  went  on  during  the  summer  and  autumn.  In  the  mean 


IMPEACHMENT. 


229 


time  startling  stories  of  the  President's  intentions  were  circulated 
by  the  unscrupulous  and  believed  by  the  credulous.  There  were 
stories  that  Johnson  was  meditating  the  role  of  a  Cromwell;  that  he 
had  a  project  of  bringing  in  the  Southern  Senators  and  Representa- 
tives, and,  with  the  Democrats,  forming  a  Congress  regardless  of  the 
Republican  majority;  that  he  had  imparted  his  purposes  to  General 
Grant,  and  asked  Grant  to  support  him  with  the  army.  Such  stories 
were  unworthy  of  credence,  but  they  found  believers  because  John- 
son had  said  and  done  so  many  foolish  things  that  he  was  thought 
capable  of  any  folly.  People  did  not  stop  to  reflect  that  Grant  would 
not  have  listened  to  such  propositions  for  a  moment — that  if  they  had 
been  made  he  would  indignantly  have  repelled  and  exposed  them. 
Although  Grant's  testimony 
showed  that  the  most  serious  of 
the  charges  was  without  founda- 
tion, a  majority  of  the  committee 
reported  a  resolution  that  "  An- 
drew Johnson,  President  of  the 
United  States,  be  impeached  of 
high  crimes  and  misdemeanors." 
This  report  was  not  unanimous  on 
the  part  of  the  majority  of  the 
whole  committee,  two  Republic- 
ans, Mr.  Wilson,  of  Iowa,  and  Mr. 
Woodbridge,  of  Vermont,  submit- 
ting a  minority  report.  Impeach- 
ment under  such  circumstances 
could  not  succeed,  and  the  resolu- 
tion was  beaten  by  108  noes  to  only 
50  ayes.  Among  the  leading  Re- 
publicans who  voted  in  the  nega- 
tive were  Allison,  Banks,  Bingham,  Blaine,  Dawes,  Garfleld,  Halsey, 
Hooper,  Moorhead,  Peters,  Poland,  Robertson,  the  three  Washburns, 
and  E.  B.  Washburne.  If  it  had  not  been  for  the  conflict  between  the 
President  and  Secretary  Stanton  this  would  have  been  the  end  of  the 
matter. 

President  Johnson  had  been  seeking  to  get  Stanton  out  of  the  War 
Department  for  a  long  time.  At  last  Stanton's  resignation  was  asked, 
August  5, 1867.  The  Secretary  of  War  refused  to  resign,  and  was  sus- 
pended under  the  Tenure  of  Office  Act  on  the  12th,  General  Grant 
being  designated  to  administer  the  Department  until  the  Senate  acted 
on  the  suspension.  The  communication  to  the  Senate  was  made  on 
the  12th  of  December,  but  that  body  did  not  act  until  January  13, 


JAMES    F.    WILSON 


230 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 


1868,  when  it  refused  to  consent  to  the  suspension.  Grant  at  once 
left  the  Department,  and  Stanton  returned  to  the  office  from  which 
he  had  been  ousted.  The  President  would  have  been  more  than 
human  if  he  had  failed  to  remove  a  member  of  the  Cabinet  so  dis- 
tasteful to  the  Executive,  whatever  the  legal  aspects  of  the  case  might 
be,  and  Stanton  was  removed  on  the  21st  of  February.  It  was  then 
that  Senator  Sumner  sent  his  laconic  message  to  Stanton — "  Stick." 
The  Senate  resolved  that  the  President  had  no  power  to  remove  the 
Secretary  of  War,  and  the  same  day  impeachment  was  again  moved 
in  the  House.  The  resolution,  which  was  offered  by  Mr.  Covode,  of 
Pennsylvania,  was  referred  to  the  Committee  on  Reconstruction, 
from  which  it  was  reported  with  a  recommendation  that  it  pass,  the 

next  day,  the  22d.  There  was  a  brief 
debate,  the  Republicans  who  had 
voted  against  the  previous  resolution 
now  taking  the  lead  in  favor  of  im- 
peachment. Among  these  were  Bing- 
ham  and  Spalding,  of  Ohio;  Wash- 
burne  and  Ingersoll,  of  Illinois,  and 
Wilson,  of  Iowa.  The  resolution  was 
passed  on  the  24th  by  126  ayes  to  47 
noes;  absent  or  not  voting,  17.  None 
of  the  Republicans  voted  against  im- 
peachment, while  only  one  Democrat 
was  recorded  as  absent  or  not  voting. 
Committees  were  appointed  to  in- 
form the  Senate  of  the  action  of  the 
House  and  to  prepare  articles  of 
impeachment,  and  seven  managers 
wrere  chosen  to  conduct  the  case  be- 
fore the  Court  of  Impeachment.  These 

were  John  A.  Bingham,  George  S.  Boutwell,  James  F.  Wilson,  Ben- 
jamin F.  Butler,  Thomas  Williams,  John  A.  Logan,  and  Thaddeus 
Stevens.  They  are  here  given  in  the  order  of  the  vote  they  re- 
ceived. Mr.  Stevens  came  last  because  his  health  was  greatly  im- 
paired, and  there  was  a  fear  that  he  was  physically  unequal  to  the 
work  imposed  upon  the  managers.  They  were  all  lawyers  eminent 
in  the  States  from  which  they  came.  After  Stevens,  Butler  was  the 
most  distinguished  at  the  Bar,  but  the  aggregate  ability  and  learning 
of  this  array  of  counsel  were  very  great.  As  lawyers  they  all  thor- 
oughly believed  in  the  justice  of  their  cause  and  the  necessity  of  the 
course  they  were  pursuing.  Mr.  Boutwell  was,  perhaps,  the  coolest 
in  temperament  of  the  seven,  but  even  he  was  intense  in  his  convic- 


EDWIN    M.    STANTON. 


IMPEACHMENT. 


231 


tiou  that  the  President's  removal  was  necessary  to  the  public  welfare. 
The  charges  were  formally  presented  on  the  5th  day  of  March  before 
the  Senate,  sitting  as  a  Court  of  Impeachment,  with  Chief  Justice 
Chase  presiding.  The  managers  were  attended  by  the  House  as  the 
Grand  Inquest  of  the  Nation.  The  articles  of  impeachment  were  read 
by  Mr.  Bingham,  after  which  the  Senate  adjourned  until  the  13th, 
when  the  counsel  for  the  President  appeared  before  the  Court. 

The  President's  counsel,  headed  by  Attorney-General  Henry  Stan- 
bery,  comprised  Benjamin  II.  Curtis,  William  M.  Evarts,  William  S. 
Groesbeck,  and  T.  A.  Nelson.  Mr.  Stanbery  was  eminent  at  the  Ohio 
Bar,  and  throughout  the  West  he  enjoyed  a  high  reputation  as  a  law- 
yer of  the  first  rank.  He  resigned 
his  place  in  the  Cabinet  to  defend 
his  chief.  Judge  Curtis  had  been 
for  six  years  a  Justice  of  the  Su- 
preme Court,  obtaining  his  appoint- 
ment through  the  influence  of  Mr. 
Webster,  but  he  resigned  in  1857 
to  return  to  the  practice  of  his  pro- 
fession. He  was  a  man  of  great 
learning  and  ability,  and  his  char- 
acter was  as  highly  esteemed  as 
his  talents  were  admired.  Mr. 
Evarts  was  the  leader  of  the  Bar  of 
the  city  and  State  of  New  York. 
He  was  conspicuous  as  an  advocate 
as  well  as  for  his  great  legal  learn- 
ing. It  was  the  President's  wish 
to  secure  the  services  of  Judge 
Black,  but  he  withdrew  at  the  last 
moment,  and  Mr.  Groesbeck  took 

his  place.  Groesbeck's  selection  was  made  at  the  suggestion  of  Mr. 
Stanbery.  He  had  a  high  reputation  at  the  Cincinnati  bar,  but  was 
not  yet  known  as  a  great  lawyer  outside  of  Ohio.  Mr.  Nelson  was  the 
President's  personal  choice.  The  counsel  for  the  President  asked 
forty  days  for  the  preparation  of  his  answer,  but  only  ten  days  were 
allowed,"  and  it  was  made  on  the  23d  of  March.  All  the  preliminary 
proceedings  being  completed,  the  formal  trial  began  on  the  30th, 
General  Butler  making  the  opening  argument.  It  was  very  volumi- 
nous, but  exhaustive  as  it  was  in  presenting  the  legal  aspects  of  im- 
peachment, it  was  especially  strong  in  its  presentation  of  the  point 
upon  which  the  House  of  Representatives  depended  for  conviction— 
the  intentional  violation  of  the  Tenure  of  Office  Act  and  of  the  Con- 


JOHN    A.    BINGHAM. 


232  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

stitution  of  the  United  States  in  the  removal  of  Mr.  Stanton  from  the 
office  of  Secretary  of  War.  The  introduction  of  the  testimony  fol- 
lowed, and  was  completed  on  the  5th  of  April,  after  which  the  Senate 
adjourned  for  five  days. 

The  case  for  the  President  was  opened  by  Judge  Curtis,  his  speech 
requiring  two  days  for  its  delivery.  His  argument  was  a  masterly 
presentation  of  the  law  from  the  highest  judicial  standpoint,  and 
some  of  its  points  were  unanswerable.  Witnesses  were  then  called, 
but  part  of  the  testimony  was  excluded  by  the  Senate  after  it  was 
pronounced  admissible  by  the  Chief  Justice.  Offers  were  made  to 
prove  that  Mr.  Stanton,  as  a  member  of  the  Cabinet,  had  advised  the 
President  that  the  Tenure  of  Office  Act  was  unconstitutional,  and 
also  that  members  of  the  Cabinet  appointed  by  Lincoln  were  not 
included  in  its  provisions.  Even  if  these  exclusions  were  good  law 
they  were  bad  politics.  After  the  testimony  was  concluded  the  clos- 
ing arguments  of  counsel  occupied  the  attention  of  the  country  as  well 
as  of  the  High  Court  of  Impeachment.  The  speeches  in  their  order 
were  made  by  General  Logan  and  Mr.  Boutwell  for  Congress,  and  Mr. 
Nelson  and  Mr.  Groesbeck  for  the  President;  then  by  Mr.  Stevens  and 
Mr.  Williams  for  Congress,  Mr.  Evarts  and  Mr.  Stanbery  for  the 
President,  and  finally  by  Mr.  Bingham  for  Congress.  Neither  Mr. 
Stevens  nor  Mr.  Stanbery  was  able  to  deliver  his  address.  Mr. 
Stevens's  argument  was  read  by  General  Butler,  and  Mr.  Stanbery 's 
by  one  of  the  officers  of  the  Attorney-General's  Department.  Twenty- 
nine  Senators  filed  opinions  in  the  case,  five  of  whom  were  Democrats 
— Hendricks,  of  Indiana;  Johnson  and  Vickers,  of  Maryland;  Davis, 
of  Kentucky,  and  Buckalew,  of  Pennsylvania.  The  vote  on  the  ar- 
ticles voted  upon  was  35  "  guilty  "  and  19  "  not  guilty."  The  change 
of  a  single  vote  from  "  not  guilty  "  to  "  guilty  "  would  have  been  suffi- 
cient to  corivict.  Besides  the  recognized  Administration  Republicans 
— Dixon,  of  Connecticut;  Doolittle,  of  Wisconsin;  Norton,  of  Minne- 
sota, and  Patterson,  of  Tennessee — Mr.  Ross,  of  Kansas,  wrho  had 
succeeded  General  Lane,  voted  for  acquittal.  The  great  trial  was 
over,  Mr.  Johnson  escaping  only  by  the  aid  of  a  Republican  vote  that 
caused  surprise  and  some  painful  surmises  when  Mr.  Ross  voted  "  not 
guilty." 

Secretary  Stanton  promptly  resigned  after  the  failure  of  impeach- 
ment, and  was  succeeded  by  General  John  M.  Schofield,  whose  nomi- 
nation was  confirmed  by  the  Senate. 

The  later  judgment  of  the  American  people  is  that  the  attempt  to 
impeach  President  Johnson  was  a  mistake,  but  the  character  of  his 
Administration  and  his  Reconstruction  policy  finds  no  more  favor 
now  than  when  Congress  and  the  country  were  in  a  condition  of 


IMPEACHMENT.  233 

resentment,  that  was  sometimes  unjust  because  it  was  earnest  for 
a  restoration  that  would  preserve  the  fruits  of  the  great  triumph  that 
had  been  obtained  only  through  four  years  of  war.  Any  other  Presi- 
dent than  Andrew  Johnson  would  probably  have  piloted  his  Adminis- 
tration through  the  Period  of  Reconstruction  not  only  without  a  con- 
flict with  Congress,  but  to  his  own  enduring  fame. 


DOCUMENTARY  HISTORY  OF  THE  EPOCH. 

FOURTEENTH  AMENDMENT  TO  THE  CONSTITUTION. 

SECTION  1.  All  persons  born  or  naturalized  in  the  United  States  and 
subject  to  the  jurisdiction  thereof,  are  citizens  of  the  United  States 
and  of  the  State  wherein  they  reside.  No  State  shall  make  or  enforce 
any  law  which  shall  abridge  the  privileges  or  immunities  of  citizens 
of  the  United  States;  nor  shall  any  State  deprive  any  person  of  life, 
liberty,  or  property,  without  due  process  of  law;  nor  deny  to  any 
person  within  its  jurisdiction  the  equal  protection  of  the  laws. 

SEC.  2.  Representatives  shall  be  apportioned  among  the  several 
States  according  to  their  respective  numbers,  counting  the  whole  num- 
ber of  persons  in  each  State,  excluding  Indians  not  taxed.  But  when 
the  right  to  vote  at  any  election  for  the  choice  of  Electors  for  Presi- 
dent and  Vice-President  of  the  United  States,  Representatives  in 
Congress,  the  executive  and  judicial  officers  of  a  State,  or  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Legislature  thereof,  is  denied  to  any  of  the  male  inhabi- 
tants of  such  State,  being  twenty-one  years  of  age,  and  citizens  of  the 
United  States,  or  in  any  way  abridged,  except  for  participation  in 
rebellion,  or  other  crime,  the  basis  of  representation  therein  shall 
be  reduced  in  the  proportion  which  the  number  of  such  male  citizens 
shall  bear  to  the  whole  number  of  male  citizens  twenty-one  years  of 
age  in  such  State. 

SEC.  3.  No  person  shall  be  a  Senator  or  Representative  in  Con- 
gress, or  Elector  of  President  and  Vice-President,  or  hold  any  office, 
civil  or  military,  under  the  United  States,  or  under  any  State,  wTho, 
having  previously  taken  an  oath,  as  a  member  of  Congress,  or  an 
officer  of  the  United  States,  or  as  a  member  of  any  State  Legislature, 
or  as  an  executive  or  judicial  officer  of  any  State,  to  support  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States,  shall  have  engaged  in  insurrection 
or  rebellion  against  the  same,  or  given  aid  or  comfort  to  the  enemies 
thereof.  But  Congress  may,  by  a  vote  of  two-thirds  of  each  House, 
remove  such  disability. 

SEC.  4.  The  validity  of  the  public  debt  of  the  United  States, 
authorized  by  law,  including  debts  incurred  for  payment  of  pensions 
and  bounties  for  services  in  suppressing  insurrection  or  rebellion, 
shall  not  be  questioned.  But  neither  the  United  States  nor  any 
State  shall  assume  or  pay  any  debt  or  obligation  incurred  in  aid  of 
insurrection  or  rebellion  against  the  United  States,  or  any  claim  for 
the  loss  or  emancipation  of  any  slave;  but  all  such  debts,  obligations, 
or  claims  shall  be  held  illegal  and  void. 


DOCUMENTARY   HISTORY   OF  THE   EPOCH.  235 

SEC.  5.  The  Congress  shall  have  power  to  enforce,  by  appropriate 
legislation,  the  provisions  of  this  article. 

RECONSTRUCTION  ACT  OF  THE  THIRTY-NINTH  CONGRESS. 

WHEREAS,  No  legal  State  Government,  or  adequate  protection  for 
life  or  property  now  exist  in  the  rebel  States  of  Virginia,  North 
Carolina,  South  Carolina,  Georgia,  Mississippi,  Alabama,  Louisiana, 
Florida,  Texas,  and  Arkansas;  and  whereas,  it  is  necessary  that  peace 
and  good  order  should  be  enforced  in  said  States  until  loyal  and 
republican  State  governments  can  be  legally  established;  Therefore 

Be  it  enacted,  etc.,  That  said  rebel  States  shall  be  divided  into 
military  districts  and  made  subject  to  the  military  authority  of  the 
United  States,  as  hereinafter  prescribed,  and  for  that  purpose  Vir- 
ginia shall  constitute  the  first  district;  North  Carolina  and  South 
Carolina  the  second  district;  Georgia,  Alabama,  and  Florida  the  third 
district;  Mississippi  and  Arkansas  the  fourth  district,  and  Louisiana 
and  Texas  the  fifth  district. 

SEC.  2.  That  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  President  to  assign  to  the 
command  of  each  of  said  districts  an  officer  of  the  army,  not  below 
the  rank  of  brigadier-general,  and  to  detail  a  sufficient  military  force 
to  enable  such  officer  to  perform  his  duties  and  enforce  his  authority 
within  the  district  to  which  he  is  assigned. 

SEC.  3.  That  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  each  officer  assigned  as  afore- 
said to  protect  all  persons  in  their  rights  of  person  and  property,  to 
suppress  insurrection,  disorder,  and  violence,  and  to  punish,  or  cause 
to  be  punished,  all  disturbers  of  the  public  peace  and  criminals,  and 
to  this  end  he  may  allow  local  civil  tribunals  to  take  jurisdiction  of 
and  to  try  offenders,  or,  when  in  his  judgment  it  may  be  necessary  for 
the  trial  of  offenders,  he  shall  have  power  to  organize  military  com- 
missions or  tribunals  for  that  purpose;  and  all  interference  under 
color  of  State  authority  with  the  exercise  of  military  authority  un- 
der this  act  shall  be  null  and  void. 

SEC.  4.  That  all  persons  put  under  military  arrest  by  virtue  of 
this  act  shall  be  tried  without  unnecessary  delay,  and  no  cruel  or  un- 
usual punishment  shall  be  inflicted;  and  no  sentence  of  any  military 
commission  or  tribunal  hereby  authorized  affecting  the  life  or  liberty 
of  any  person  shall  be  executed  until  it  is  approved  by  the  officer  in 
command  of  the  district,  and  the  laws  and  regulations  for  the  govern- 
ment of  the  army  shall  not  be  affected  by  this  act,  except  in  so  far  as 
they  conflict  with  its  provisions :  Provided,  That  no  sentence  of  death 
under  the  provisions  of  this  act  shall  be  carried  into  effect  without 
the  approval  of  the  President. 


236  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

SEC.  5.  That  when  the  people  of  any  one  of  said  rebel  States 
shall  have  formed  a  constitution  of  government  in  conformity  with 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  in  all  respects,  framed  by  a 
convention  of  delegates  elected  by  the  male  citizens  of  said  State 
twenty-one  years  old  and  upward,  of  whatever  race,  color,  or  previous 
condition,  who  have  been  resident  in  said  State  for  one  year  previous 
to  the  day  of  such  election,  except  such  as  may  be  disfranchised  for 
participation  in  the  rebellion,  or  for  felony  at  common  law,  and  when 
such  constitutions  shall  provide  that  the  elective  franchise  shall  be 
enjoyed  by  all  such  persons  as  have  the  qualifications  herein  stated 
for  electors  of  delegates,  and  when  such  constitution  shall  provide 
that  the  elective  franchise  shall  be  enjoyed  by  all  persons  as  have  the 
qualifications  herein  stated  for  electors  of  delegates,  and  when  such 
constitution  shall  be  ratified  by  a  majority  of  the  persons  voting  on 
the  question  of  ratification  who  are  qualified  as  electors  for  delegates, 
and  when  such  constitution  shall  have  been  submitted  to  Congress 
for  examination  and  approval,  and  Congress  shall  have  approved  the 
same,  and  when  said  State,  by  a  vote  of  its  Legislature  elected  under 
such  constitution,  shall  have  adopted  the  amendment  to  the  Consti- 
tution of  the  United  States,  proposed  by  the  39th  Congress, 
and  known  as  article  fourteen,  and  when  said  article  shall  have  be- 
come a  part  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  said  State  shall 
be  declared  entitled  to  representation  in  Congress,  and  Senators  and 
Representatives  shall  be  admitted  therefrom  on  taking  the  oaths 
prescribed  by  law,  and  then  and  thereafter  the  preceding  sections  of 
this  act  shall  be  inoperative  in  said  State:  Provided,  That  no  person 
excluded  from  the  privilege  of  holding  office  by  said  proposed  amend- 
ment to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  shall  be  eligible  to 
election  as  a  member  of  the  convention  to  frame  a  constitution  for 
any  of  said  rebel  States,  nor  shall  any  such  person  vote  for  members  of 
such  convention. 

SEC.  6.  That  until  the  people  of  said  rebel  States  shall  be  by  law 
admitted  to  representation  in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  any 
civil  governments  which  may  exist  therein  shall  be  deemed  pro- 
visional only,  and  in  all  respects  subject  to  the  paramount  authority 
of  the  United  States  at  any  time  to  abolish,  modify,  control,  or  super- 
sede the  same;  and  in  all  elections  to  any  office  under  such  provisional 
governments  all  persons  shall  be  entitled  to  vote,  and  none  others, 
who  are  entitled  to  vote  under  the  provisions  of  the  fifth  section  of 
this  act;  and  no  person  shall  be  eligible  to  any  office  under  any  such 
provisional  governments  who  would  be  disqualified  from  holding 
office  under  the  provisions  of  the  third  article  of  said  constitutional 
amendment. 


DOCUMENTARY   HISTORY   OF   THE   EPOCH.  237 

SUPPLEMENTARY  RECONSTRUCTION  ACT  OF  THE  FORTIETH  CONGRESS, 

Be  it  enacted,  etc.,  That  before  the  first  day  of  September,  eighteen 
hundred  and  sixty-seven,  the  commanding  general  in  each  district 
defined  by  an  act  entitled  "  An  Act  to  Provide  for  the  more  efficient 
Government  of  the  llebel  States,"  passed  March  second,  eighteen  hun- 
dred and  sixty-seven,  shall  cause  a  registration  to  be  made  of  the 
male  citizens  of  the  United  States,  twenty-one  years  of  age  and  up- 
ward, resident  in  each  county  or  parish  in  the  State  or  States  in- 
cluded in  his  district,  which  registration  shall  include  only  those  per- 
sons who  are  qualified  to  vote  for  delegates  by  the  act  aforesaid,  and 
who  shall  have  taken  and  subscribed  the  following  oath  or  affirma- 
tion: "  I, ,  do  solemnly  swear  (or  affirm),  in  the  presence  of 

Almighty  God,  that  I  am  a  citizen  of  the  State  of  — ;  that  I  have 

resided  in  said  State  for ,  or  the  parish  of  -  — ,  in  said  State 

(as  the  case  may  be);  that  I  am  twenty-one  years  old;  that  I  have  not 
been  disfranchised  for  participation  in  any  rebellion  or  civil  war 
against  the  United  States,  nor  for  felony  committed  against  the  lawrs 
of  any  State  or  of  the  United  States;  that  I  have  never  been  a  mem- 
ber of  any  State  Legislature,  nor  held  any  executive  or  judicial  office 
in  any  State,  and  afterwrard  engaged  in  insurrection  or  rebellion 
against  the  United  States,  or  given  aid  or  comfort  to  the  enemies 
thereof;  that  I  have  never  taken  an  oath  as  a  member  of  Congress  of 
the  United  States,  or  as  an  officer  of  the  United  States,  to  support  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  afterward  engaged  in  insur- 
rection and  rebellion  against  the  United  States,  or  given  aid  or  com- 
fort to  the  enemies  thereof;  that  I  will  faithfully  support  the  Consti- 
tution and  obey  the  laws  of  the  United  States,  and  will,  to  the  best 
of  my  ability,  encourage  others  so  to  do,  so  help  me  God";  which 
oath  or  affirmation  may  be  administered  by  any  registering  officer. 

SEC.  2.  That  after  the  completion  of  the  registration  hereby 
provided  for  in  any  State,  at  such  time  arid  places  therein  as  the  com- 
manding general  shall  appoint  and  direct,  of  which  at  least  thirty 
days'  public  notice  shall  be  given,  an  election  shall  be  held  of  dele- 
gates to  a  convention  for  the  purpose  of  establishing  a  constitution 
and  civil  government  for  such  State  loyal  to  the  Union,  said  conven- 
tion in  each  State,  except  Virginia,  to  consist  of  the  same  number  of 
members  as  the  most  numerous  branch  of  the  State  Legislature  of 
such  State  in  the  year  eighteen  hundred  and  sixty,  to  be  apportioned 
among  the  several  districts,  counties,  or  parishes  of  such  State  by  the 
commanding  general,  giving  to  each  representation  in  the  ratio  of 
voters  registered  as  aforesaid,  as  nearly  as  may  be.  The1  convention 
in  Virginia  shall  consist  of  the  same  number  of  members  as  repre- 
sented the  territory  now  constituting  Virginia  in  the  most  numerous 


238  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

branch  of  the  Legislature  of  said  State  in  the  year  eighteen  hundred 
and  sixty,  to  be  apportioned  as  aforesaid. 

SEC.  3.  That  at  said  election  registered  voters  of  each  State  shall 
vote  for  or  against  a  convention  to  form  a  constitution  therefor  under 
this  act.  Those  voting  in  favor  of  such  a  convention  shall  have  writ- 
ten or  printed  on  the  ballots  by  which  they  vote  for  delegates,  as 
aforesaid,  the  words  "  For  a  convention,"  and  those  voting  against 
such  a  convention  shall  have  written  or  printed  on  such  ballots  the 
words  "  Against  a  convention."  The  person  appointed  to  superintend 
said  election,  and  to  make  return  of  the  votes  given  thereat,  as  here- 
in provided,  shall  count  and  make  return  of  the  votes  given  for  and 
against  a  convention;  and  the  commanding  general  to  whom  the  same 
shall  have  been  returned  shall  ascertain  and  declare  the  total  vote 
in  each  State  for  and  against  a  convention.  If  a  majority  of  the  votes 
given  on  that  question  shall  be  for  a  convention,  then  such  conven- 
tion shall  be  held  as  hereinafter  provided;  but  if  a  majority  of  said 
votes  shall  be  against  a  convention,  then  no  such  convention  shall  be 
held  under  this  act:  Provided,  That  such  convention  shall  not  be  held 
unless  a  majority  of  all  such  registered  voters  shall  have  voted  on  the 
question  of  holding  such  convention. 

SEC.  4.  That  the  commanding  general  of  each  district  shall  ap- 
point as  many  boards  of  registration  as  may  be  necessary,  consisting 
of  three  loyal  officers  or  persons,  to  make  and  complete  the  registra- 
tion, superintend  the  election,  and  make  return  to  him  of  the  votes, 
lists  of  voters,  and  of  the  persons  elected  as  delegates  by  a  plurality 
of  the  votes  cast  at  said  election;  and  upon  receiving  said  returns  he 
shall  open  the  same,  ascertain  the  persons  elected  as  delegates  accord- 
ing to  the  returns  of  the  officers  who  conducted  said  election,  and 
make  proclamation  thereof;  and  if  a  majority  of  the  votes  given  on 
that  question  shall  be  for  a  convention,  the  commanding  general, 
within  sixty  days  from  the  date  of  election,  shall  notify  the  delegates 
to  assemble  in  convention,  at  a  time  and  place  to  be  mentioned  in  the 
notification,  and  said  convention,  when  organized,  shall  proceed  to 
frame  a  constitution  and  civil  government  according  to  the  provision 
of  this  act  and  the  act  to  which  it  is  supplementary;  and  when  the 
same  shall  have  been  so  framed,  said  constitution  shall  be  submitted 
by  the  convention  for  ratification  to  the  persons  registered  under  the 
provisions  of  this  act  at  an  election  to  be  conducted  by  the  officers  or 
persons  appointed  or  to  be  appointed  by  the  commanding  general,  as 
hereinbefore  provided,  and  to  be  held  after  the  expiration  of  thirty 
days  from  the  date  of  notice  thereof,  to  be  given  by  said  convention, 
and  the  returns  thereof  shall  be  made  to  the  commanding  general  of 
the  district. 


DOCUMENTARY    HISTORY.  OF   THE   EPOCH.  239 

SEC.  5.  That  if,  according  to  said  returns,  the  constitution  shall 
be  ratified  by  a  majority  of  the  votes  of  the  registered  electors  quali- 
fied as  herein  specified,  cast  at  said  election  (at  least  one-half  of  all  the 
registered  voters  voting  upon  the  question  of  such  ratification),  the 
President  of  the  Convention  shall  transmit  a  copy  of  the  same,  duly 
certified,  to  the  President  of  the  United  States,  who  shall  forthwith 
transmit  the  same  to  Congress,  if  then  in  session,  and  if  not  in  session, 
then  immediately  upon  its  next  assembling;  'and  if  it  shall,  moreover, 
appear  to  Congress  that  the  election  was  one  at  which  all  the  regis- 
tered and  qualified  electors  in  the  State  had  an  opportunity  to  vote 
freely  and  without  restraint,  fear,  or  the  influence  of  fraud,  and  if  the 
Congress  shall  be  satisfied  that  such  constitution  meets  the  approval 
of  a  majority  of  all  the  qualified  electors  in  the  State,  and  if  the  said 
constitution  shall  be  declared  by  Congress  to  be  in  conformity  with 
the  provisions  of  the  act  to  which  this  is  supplementary,  and  the 
other  provisions  of  said  act  shall  have  been  complied  with,  and  the 
said  constitution  shall  be  approved  by  Congress,  the  State  shall  be 
declared  entitled  to  representation,  and  Senators  and  Representatives 
shall  be  admitted  therefrom  as  therein  provided. 

SEC.  6.  That  all  elections  in  the  States  mentioned  in  the  said 
"  Act  to  Provide  for  the  More  Efficient  Government  of  the  Rebel 
States,"  shall,  during  the  operation  of  said  act,  be  by  ballot;  and  all 
officers  making  the  said  registration  of  voters  and  conducting  said 
elections  shall,  before  entering  upon  the  discharge  of  their  duties, 
take  and  subscribe  the  oath  prescribed  by  the  act  approved  July 
second,  eighteen  hundred  and  sixty-two,  entitled  "  An  Act  to  Pre- 
scribe an  Oath  of  Office":  Provided,  That  if  any  person  shall  know- 
ingly and  falsely  take  and  subscribe  any  oath  in  this  act  prescribed, 
such  person  so  offending  and  being  thereof  duly  convicted,  shall  be 
subject  to  the  pains,  penalties,  and  disabilities  which  by  law  are 
provided  for  the  punishment  of  the  crime  of  willful  and  corrupt 
perjury. 

SEC.  7.  That  all  expenses  incurred  by  the  several  commanding 
generals,  or  by  virtue  of  any  orders  issued,  or  appointments  made,  by 
them,  under  or  by  virtue  of  this  act,  shall  be  paid  out  of  any  moneys 
in  the  treasury  not  otherwise  appropriated. 

SEC.  8.  That  the  convention  for  each  State  shall  prescribe  the 
fees,  salary,  and  compensation  to  be  paid  to  all  delegates  and  other 
officers  and  agents  herein  authorized  or  necessary  to  carry  into  effect 
"the  purposes  of  this  act  not  herein  otherwise  provided  for,  and  shall 
provide  for  the  levy  and  collection  of  such  taxes  on  the  property  in 
such  State  as  may  be  necessary  to  pay  the  same. 

SEC.  9.  That  the  word  article,  in  the  sixth  section  of  the  act  to 
which  this  is  supplementary,  shall  be  construed  to  mean  section. 


240  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

SUPPLEMENTARY   RECONSTRUCTION  ACT   OF  JULY   19,   1867. 

Be  it  enacted,  etc.,  That  it  is  hereby  declared  to  have  been  the  true 
intent  and  meaning  of  the  act  of  the  2d  day  of  March,  1867,  entitled 
"  An  Act  to  Provide  for  the  more  efficient  Government  of  the  Rebel 
States,"  and  of  the  act  supplementary  thereto,  passed  on  the  23d  day 
of  March.  1867,  that  the  government  then  existing  in  the  rebel  States 
of  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  South  Carolina,  Georgia,  Mississippi, 
Alabama,  Louisiana,  Florida,  Texas,  and  Arkansas,  were  not  legal 
State  governments;  and  that  thereafter  said  governments,  if  con- 
tinued, were  to  be  continued  subject  in  all  respects  to  the  military 
commanders  of  the  respective  districts,  and  to  the  paramount  author- 
ity of  Congress. 

SEC.  2.  That  the  commander  of  any  district  named  in  said  act 
shall  have  power,  subject  to  the  disapproval  of  the  General  of  the 
Army  of  the  United  States,  and  to  have  effect  till  disapproved,  when- 
ever in  the  opinion  of  such  commander  the  proper  administration  of 
said  act  shall  require  it,  to  suspend  or  remove  from  office,  or  from  the 
performance  of  official  duties  and  the  exercise  of  official  powers,  any 
officer  or  person  holding  or  exercising,  or  professing  to  hold  or  exer- 
cise, any  civil  or  military  office  or  duty  in  such  district  under  any 
power,  election,  appointment,  or  authority  derived  from,  or  granted 
by,  or  claimed  under,  any  so-called  State  or  the  government  thereof, 
or  any  municipal  or  other  division  thereof;  and  upon  such  suspension 
or  removal  such  commander,  subject  to  the  disapproval  of  the  Gen- 
eral as  aforesaid,  shall  have  power  to  provide  from  time  to  time  for 
the  performance  of  the  said  duties  of  such  officer  or  person  so  sus- 
pended or  removed,  by  the  detail  of  some  competent  officer  or  soldier 
of  the  army,  or  by  the  appointment  of  some  other  person  to  perform 
the  same,  and  to  fill  vacancies  occasioned  by  death,  resignation,  or 
otherwise. 

SEC.  3.  That  the  General  of  the  Army  of  the  United  States  shall 
be  invested  with  all  the  powers  of  suspension,  removal,  appointment, 
and  detail  granted  in  the  preceding  section  to  district  commanders. 

SEC.  4.  That  the  acts  of  the  officers  of  the  army  already  done  in 
removing  in  said  districts  persons  exercising  the  functions  of  civil 
officers^  and  appointing  others  in  their  stead,  are  hereby  confirmed: 
Provided,  That  any  person  heretofore  or  hereafter  appointed  by  any 
district  commander  to  exercise  the  functions  of  any  civil  office,  may 
be  removed  either  by  the  military  officer  in  command  of  the  district, 
or  by  the  General  of  the  Army.  And  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  such  com- 
mander to  remove  from  office,  as  aforesaid,  all  persons  who  are  dis- 
loyal to  the  tjovernment' of  the  United  States,  or  who  use  their  official 


DOCUMENTARY   HISTORY   OF   THE   EPOCH.  241 

influence  in  any  manner  to  hinder,  delay,  prevent,  or  obstruct  the 
due  and  proper  administration  of  this  act  and  the  acts  to  which  it  is 
supplementary. 

SEC.  5.  That  the  boards  of  registration  provided  for  in  the  act  en- 
titled "  An  Act  Supplementary  to  the  Act  entitled  '  An  Act  to  Pro- 
vide for  the  more  efficient  Government  of  the  Rebel  States,'  passed 
March  2,  1867,  and  to  Facilitate  their  Restoration,"  passed  March  23, 
1867,  shall  have  power,  and  it  shall  be  their  duty,  before  allowing  the 
registration  of  any  person,  to  ascertain  upon  such  facts  or  information 
as  they  can  obtain,  whether  such  person  is  entitled  to  be  registered  un- 
der said  act,  and  the  oath  required  by  said  act  shall  not  be  conclusive 
on  such  question,  and  no  person  shall  be  registered  unless  such  board 
shall  decide  that  he  is  entitled  thereto;  and  such  board  shall  also 
have  power  to  examine,  under  oath  (to  be  administered  by  any  mem- 
ber of  such  board),  any  one  touching  the  qualification  of  any  person 
claiming  registration;  but  in  every  case  of  refusal  by  the  board  to 
register  an  applicant,  and  in  every  case  of  striking  his  name  from 
the  list  as  hereinafter  provided,  the  board  shall  make  a  note  or  mem- 
orandum, which  shall  be  returned  with  the  registration  list  to  the 
commanding  general  of  the  district,  setting  forth  the  grounds  of  such 
refusal  or  such  striking  from  the  list:  Provided,  That  no  person  shall 
be  disqualified  as  member  of  any  board  of  registration  by  reason  of 
race  or  color. 

SEC.  6.  That  the  true  intent  and  meaning  of  the  oath  prescribed  in 
said  supplementary  act  is  (among  other  things),  that  no  person  who 
has  been  a  member  of  the  Legislature  of  any  State,  or  who  has  held  an 
executive  or  judicial  office  in  any  State,  whether  he  has  taken  an  oath 
to  support  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  or  not,  and  whether 
he  was  holding  such  office  at  the  commencement  of  the  rebellion,  or 
had  held  it  before,  and  who  has  afterward  engaged  in  insurrection 
or  rebellion  against  the  United  States,  or  given  aid  or  comfort  to  the 
enemies  thereof,  is  entitled  to  be  registered  or  to  vote;  and  the  words, 
"  executive  or  judicial  office  in  any  State  "  in  said  oath  mentioned 
shall  be  construed  to  include  all  civil  offices  created  by  law  for  the 
administration  of  any  general  law  of  a  State,  or  for  the  administra- 
tion of  justice. 

SEC.  7.  That  the  time  for  completing  the  original  registration 
provided  for  in  said  act  may,  in  the  discretion  of  the  commander  of 
any  district,  be  extended  to  the  first  day  of  October,  1867;  and  the 
boards  of  registration  shall  have  power,  and  it  shall  be  their  duty, 
commencing  fourteen  days  prior  to  any  election  under  said  act,  and 
upon  reasonable  public  notice  of  the  time  and  place  thereof,  to  revise, 
for  a  period  of  five  days,  the  registration  lists,  and  upon  being  satis- 


242  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

fled  that  any  person  not  entitled  thereto  has  been  registered,  to  strike 
the  name  of  such  person  from  the  list,  and  such  person  shall  not  be 
allowed  to  vote.  And  such  board  shall  also,  during  the  same  period, 
add  to  such  registry  the  names  of  all  persons  who  at  that  time  possess 
the  qualifications  required  by  said  act  who  have  not  been  already 
registered;  and  no  person  shall,  at  any  time,  be  entitled  to  be  regis- 
tered or  to  vote,  by  reason  of  any  executive  pardon  or  amnesty,  for 
any  act  or  thing  which,  without  such  pardon  or  amnesty,  would 
disqualify  him  from  registration  or  voting. 

SEC.  8.  That  section  four  of  said  last-named  act  shall  be  con- 
strued to  authorize  the  commanding  general  named  therein,  when- 
ever he  shall  deem  it  needful,  to  remove  any  member  of  a  board  of 
registration  and  to  appoint  another  in  his  stead,  and  to  fill  any  va- 
cancy in  such  board. 

SEC.  9.  That  all  members  of  said  boards  of  registration,  and  all 
persons  hereafter  elected  or  appointed  to  office  in  said  military  dis- 
tricts, under  any  so-called  State  or  municipal  authority,  or  by  detail 
or  appointment  of  the  district  commanders,  shall  be  required  to  take 
and  to  subscribe  the  oath  of  office  prescribed  by  law  for  officers  of 
the  United  States. 

SEC.  10.  That  no  district  commander  or  member  of  the  board  of 
registration,  or  any  of  the  officers  or  appointees  acting  under  them, 
shall  be  bound  in  his  action  by  any  opinion  of  any  civil  officer  of  the 
United  States. 

SEC.  11.  That  all  the  provisions  of  this  act  and  of  the  acts  to  which 
this  is  supplementary  shall  be  construed  liberally,  to  the  end  that  all 
the  intents  thereof  may  be  fully  and  perfectly  carried  out. 

AMENDATORY  RECONSTRUCTION  ACT  OF  MARCH  11,  1868. 

Be  it  enacted,  etc.,  That  hereafter  any  election  authorized  by  the 
act  passed  March  23,  1867,  entitled  "  An  Act  Supplementary  to  '  An 
Act  to  Provide  for  the  more  efficient  Government  of  the  Rebel  States,' 
passed  March  2,  1867,  and  to  Facilitate  their  Restoration,"  shall  be 
decided  by  a  majority  of  the  votes  actually  cast;  and  at  the  election 
in  which  the  question  of  the  adoption  or  rejection  of  any  constitution 
is  submitted,  any  person  duly  registered  in  the  State  may  vote  in 
the  election  district  where  he  offers  to  vote  when  he  has  resided 
therein  for  ten  days  next  preceding  such  election  upon  presentation 
of  his  certificate  of  registration,  his  affidavit,  or  other  satisfactory 
evidence,  under  such  regulations  as  the  district  commanders  may 
prescribe. 

SEC.  2.  That  the  constitutional  convention  of  any  of  the  States 
mentioned  in  the  acts  to  which  this  is  amendatory  may  provide  that 


DOCUMENTARY   HISTORY   OF   THE   EPOCH.  243 

at  the  time  of  voting  upon  the  ratification  of  the  Constitution,  the 
registered  voters  may  vote  also  for  members  of  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives of  the  United  States,  and  for  all  elective  officers  provided 
for  by  the  said  Constitution;  and  the  same  election  officers,  who  shall 
make  the  return  of  the  votes  cast  on  the  ratification  or  rejection  of  the 
Constitution,  shall  enumerate  and  certify  the  votes  cast  for  members 
of  Congress. 


THE  PERIOD  OF  RESTORATION. 
I. 

THE  GRANT  AND  COLFAX  CAMPAIGN. 

Fourth  Republican  National  Convention — General  Grant — Grant  and 
Johnson — Organization  of  the  Chicago  Convention — Sickles  and 
Hawley — The  Platform  of  1868- — General  Logan — Contest  for  the 
Vice-Presidency — Wade  and  Colfax — Popularity  of  Schuyler  Col- 
fax — Tender  of  the  Nominations — Democratic  National  Conven- 
tion— Pendletou — Chief  Justice  Chase — The  Intrigues — Nomina- 
tion of  Horatio  Seymour — Frank  P.  Blair,  Jr.,  for  Vice-President 
—The  Campaign — Analysis  of  the  Result— The  Electoral  Count 
—Louisiana — The  Fifteenth  Amendment — Inauguration  of  Presi- 
dent Grant. 

| HE  Fourth  Republican  National  Convention  met  at  Chicago 
May  20,  1868,  only  four  days  after  the  first  vote  in  the 
Senate  on  the  Articles  of  Impeachment.  There  was  no 
concealment  of  the  keen  disappointment  that  was  felt  at 
the  President's  escape.  But  this  feeling  of  disappointment  in  no  way 
diminished  the  enthusiasm  of  the  party.  As  had  always  been  the 
case  with  these  great  Republican  gatherings,  the  Convention  was 
largely  made  up  of  young  men.  Among  these  were  Eugene  Hale,  of 
Maine;  William  E.  Chandler,  of  New  Hampshire;  George  B.  Loring, 
of  Massachusetts;  Charles  C.  Van  Zandt,  of  Rhode  Island;  Joseph  R. 
Hawley,  of  Connecticut;  Chauncey  M.  Depew  and  Frank  Hiscock,  of 
New  York;  General  Harry  WThite,  of  Pennsylvania,  and  Emory  A. 
Storrs,  of  Illinois.  There  was  a  large  number  of  men  who  filled  dis- 
tinguished positions  in  their  States  then  or  afterward — William  Claf- 
lin,  Governor  of  Massachusetts;  Lyman  Tremaine,  Attorney-General, 
and  Charles  Andrews,  afterward  Chief  Justice  of  New  York;  John 
A.  J.  Creswell,  of  Maryland,  afterward  in  Grant's  Cabinet;  John  A. 
Bingham,  of  Ohio;  Richard  W.  Thompson,  of  Indiana,  Secretary  of 
the  Navy  under  President  Hayes;  James  Speed,  of  Kentucky,  and 
Governor  Fletcher,  of  Missouri.  The  distinguished  soldiers  of  the 
Union  included  John  A.  Logan,  of  Illinois;  Daniel  E.  Sickles,  of  New 
York,  and  Carl  Schurz,  of  Missouri.  Among  the  delegates  New  York 
sent  Moses  H.  Grinnell;  New  Jersey,  A.  G.  Cattell;  Pennsylvania, 
Colonel  John  W.  Forney;  and  Indiana,  Henry  S.  Lane.  It  was  a  Con- 


THE  GRANT  AND  COLFAX  CAMPAIGN.  245 

vention  grandly  representative  of  the  past  history  of  the  party,  in- 
stinct with  the  purposes  that  inspired  the  Reconstruction  policy  of 
Congress,  and  typical  of  the  future  that  was  in  store  for  the  country. 

The  Chicago  Convention  of  1868  was  in  marked  contrast  with  that 
of  1860.  Of  the  two  men  in  whom  the  interest  centered  eight  years 
before  one  was  dead  and  the  other  was  dead  to  the  party.  Abraham 
Lincoln  had  been  foully  murdered.  William  H.  Seward  had  shared 
the  disgrace  of  Johnson's  Administration.  Weed  and  Evarts,  so  con- 
spicuous before,  were  now  only  conspicuous  through  their  absence. 
The  Whig  influences  that  then  were  potent,  now  were  obliterated. 
A  great  war  had  intervened,  to  be  followed  by  a  period  of  agitation 
the  most  stirring  and  bitter  in  American  political  history.  Out  of 
the  war  had  come  one  great  soldier — triumphant  in  arms  and  faith- 
ful in  peace.  There  was  only  one  candidate  for  the  Presidential  nomi- 
nation— Ulysses  S.  Grant.  He  was  not  the  candidate  of  the  politi- 
cians, who  would  have  preferred  that  the  nomination  should  go  to 
a  party  chief,  but  the  popular  will  was  so  unmistakable  that  no  de- 
termined effort  was  made  to  forestall  the  popular  choice. 

After  the  war  General  Grant's  position  wTas  a  singularly  trying 
one.  Toward  the  President  and  toward  Congress  he  maintained  re- 
lations of  peculiar  delicacy.  As  the  head  of  the  army  it  was  his  duty 
to  co-operate  in  carrying  out  any  plan  for  the  restoration  of  the  South 
that  the  Legislative  and  Executive  Departments  of  the  Government 
might  agree  upon.  As  the  policy  of  the  President  and  the  plan  of 
Congress  were  diametrically  opposed  to  each  other,  it  was  difficult 
for  him  to  please  either — easy  to  offend  both.  That  he  gave  serious 
offense  to  neither,  through  a  discretion  and  dignity  that  showed  that 
he  possessed  high  qualities  as  a  man  as  well  as  great  genius  as  a 
soldier,  was  a  proof  to  the  people  that  he  ought  to  rule  after  he  had 
conquered.  His  course  had  been  closely  watched  by  the  country, 
sometimes  with  fear  that  he  was  about  to  err,  but  it  was  to  end  with 
complete  faith  in  his  judgment  and  patriotism.  That  Mr.  Johnson 
did  not  entirely  despair  of  molding  Grant  to  his  views,  or  at  least  of 
using  him  for  the  aims  the  Administration  had  so  much  at  heart,  is 
shown  by  the  onerous  duties  that  were  thrust  upon  him  by  the  Presi- 
dent. As  early  as  the  autumn  of  1865  an  attempt  was  made  to  use 
his  prestige  for  the  benefit  of  the  Administration.  In  November, 
when  General  Grant  wras  about  to  start  on  a  tour  of  inspection  in  the 
South,  the  President  asked  him  "  to  learn,  as  far  as  possible,  during 
his  tour,  the  feelings  and  intentions  of  the  citizens  of  the  Southern 
States  toward  the  National  Government."  Grant  complied,  and  made 
a  perfunctory  report  in  which  he  expressed  the  belief  that  "  the  mass 
of  thinking  men  of  the  South  accept  the  present  situation  of  affairs 


246  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

in  good  faith,"  but  at  the  same  time  he  thought  that  "  four  years  of 
war  have  left  the  people  possibly  in  a  condition  not  ready  to  yield 
that  obedience  to  civil  authority  which  the  American  people  have 
been  in  the  habit  of  yielding,  thus  rendering  the  presence  of  small 
garrisons  throughout  those  States  necessary  until  such  time  as  labor 
returns  to  its  proper  channels  and  civil  authority  is  fully  established." 
The  report  contained  some  other  expressions  of  opinion  that  were 
hopeful,  but  not  optimistic.  The  friends  of  the  Administration,  how- 
ever, professed  to  find  in  Grant's  language  strong  justification  of  the 
President's  position  on  the  question  of  Reconstruction,  and  began  to 
use  the  report  to  the  general's  prejudice.  Nobody  was  quicker  to 
see  this  than  Grant  himself.  His  early  impressions  were  not  con- 
firmed by  closer  inquiry,  and  no  one  more  thoroughly  approved  the 
Reconstruction  measures  of  the  Republican  party  wrhen  the  real  con- 
dition of  the  South  was  ascertained.  A  soldier  more  impulsive  or 
impetuous  would  have  resented  the  affair  as  a  trick,  but  Grant  ig- 
nored it,  and  the  country  was  not  long  in  ignorance  of  his  later  con- 
clusions. His  acceptance  of  the  office  of  Secretary  of  War  ad  interim, 
when  Stanton  was  suspended  by  the  President,  was  another  instance 
in  which  Grant  found  himself  in  dangerous  contact  with  the  Admin- 
istration. He  protested  against  the  suspension  of  Stanton,  and  ac- 
cepted the  War  Department  with  great  reluctance.  When  the  Senate 
acted  on  the  suspension,  restoring  Stanton  to  his  functions,  Grant  at 
once  gave  up  all  control  of  the  Department.  Johnson  afterward  said 
that  Grant  promised  either  to  remain  or  resign,  but  Grant  answered, 
"  I  made  no  such  promise."  It  was  a  case  in  which  no  question  of 
veracity  could  arise  in  the  minds  of  the  people.  They  believed  Grant. 
He  had  established  his  claim  to  the  confidence  as  well  as  the  gratitude 
of  the  country.  It  was  determined  that  the  chief  hero  of  the  war 
should  be  the  leader  in  the  restoration  that  should  have  followed  the 
peace,  but  was  delayed  by  the  course  of  Andrew  Johnson,  his  Demo- 
cratic allies,  and  an  unrepentant  South. 

In  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  Presidential  nomination  was  a  foregone 
conclusion,  the  Convention  had  a  number  of  interesting  features. 
Although  impeachment  had  already  partly  failed,  hope  of  Johnson's 
conviction  was  not  yet  abandoned.  This  gave  an  aggressive  spirit  to 
the  delegates,  that  was  felt  in  the  Convention  and  expressed  in  the 
Platform.  The  war  party  of  the  previous  epoch  was  about  to  enter 
upon  its  great  work  as  the  party  of  peace.  A  broad  national  financial 
and  industrial  policy  was  required,  and  great  interest  was  shown  in 
molding  the  policy  of  the  party  so  that  its  principles  would  conserve 
the  true  interests  of  the  country.  Besides,  there  was  a  keen  compe- 
tition for  the  second  place  on  the  ticket.  These  rivalries  were  exerted 


THE  GRANT  AND  COLFAX  CAMPAIGN.  247 

so  early  that  they  were  felt  in  the  organization  of  the  Convention. 
There  was  no  difficulty  over  the  selection  of  the  temporary  chairman, 
the  place  being  accorded  to  General  Carl  Schurz,  in  recognition  of 
his  independent  course  when  he  was  sent  to  investigate  the  condition 
of  the  South  by  the  President  in  1865.  His  report  was  so  unsatisfac- 
tory to  the  Administration  that  an  effort  was  made  to  suppress  it. 
This  was  prevented  by  the  Senate,  and  it  proved  a  very  important 
document  when  Congress  undertook  to  formulate  a  plan  of  Recon- 
struction. For  permanent  President  there  were  two  candidates — 
General  Sickles  and  General  Hawley.  Sickles  had  made  a  brilliant 
reputation  in  the  war,  and  lost  a  leg  at  Gettysburg.  As  one  of  the 
Military  Governors  in  the  South,  under  the  Reconstruction  Acts,  he 
incurred  the  hostility  of  the  Administration,  and  he,  of  course,  became 
all  the  more  popular  with  the  Republican  masses  because  of  the 
enemies  he  had  made.  Hawley  was  also  distinguished  as  a  soldier, 
and  had  supported  the  Civil  Rights  bill  on  the  broad  ground  that  he 
was  not  ashamed  to  sleep  in  a  tavern,  or  go  to  a  theater,  or  be  buried 
in  a  graveyard  with  his  colored  brother.  In  the  Committee  on  Organ- 
ization the  vote  for  Sickles  and  Hawley  was  a  tie.  As  Sickles  was 
from  New  York,  and  Fenton  was  the  candidate  of  the  New  York 
delegation  for  Vice-President,  Hamilton  Harris,  of  Albany,  who  had 
the  casting  vote,  decided  the  contest  in  favor  of  Hawley.  In  his 
speech  on  taking  the  chair  General  Hawley  gave  a  forecast  of  the 
future  policy  of  the  party.  "  For  every  dollar  of  the  national  debt," 
he  said,  "  the  blood  of  a  soldier  is  pledged.  .  .  .  Every  bond,  in 
letter  and  spirit,  must  be  as  sacred  as  a  soldier's  grave."  These  pa- 
triotic maxims  wrere  received  with  loud  applause  by  the  Convention, 
and  were  embodied  in  the  platform  as  the  principles  of  Republican 
action. 

The  Republican  Platform  of  1868,  reported  on  the  second  day  of 
the  Convention  and  adopted  with  enthusiasm,  differed  from  previous 
declarations  in  the  absence  of  any  reference  to  the  vexed  question  of 
so  many  years — slavery.  In  its  place  a  new  principle  became  con- 
spicuous— equal  suffrage.  This,  and  the  maintenance  of  the  public 
faith,  were  the  great  questions  of  the  new  epoch.  In  one  respect  the 
Convention  and  its  declaration  of  principles  fell  short  of  the  high  mis- 
sion of  the  Republican  party.  It  failed  to  demand  equal  suffrage  in 
all  the  States,  declaring  that  "  the  question  of  suffrage  in  the  loyal 
States  properly  belongs  to  the  people  of  those  States."  This  was  an 
unworthy  surrender  to  expediency — a  sacrifice  of  the  consistency  and 
courage  of  the  party.  The  motive  that  prompted  it  was  the  fear  of 
losing  the  electoral  votes  of  Indiana  and  California,  where  the  preju- 
dice against  negro  suffrage  was  very  strong.  It  can  not  be  claimed 


248  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

that  this  insincere  device  was  necessary  in  Indiana — indeed,  it  is  not 
even  likely  that  it  kept  California  in  the  Grant  column,  notwith- 
standing the  fact  that  the  Kepublican  majority  in  that  State  was 
only  512.  But  the  party  in  deeds  was  more  consistent  and  courageous 
than  the  Convention  in  words,  and  the  declaration  went  unheeded. 
On  the  financial  issue  the  platform  was  earnest  and  unequivocal.  The 
arraignment  of  the  President  was  severe  and  reflected  Republican 
feeling.  On  all  questions,  except  equal  suffrage,  the  platform  was  a 
signboard  that  pointed  the  pathway  that  the  party  was  destined  to 
follow. 

The  nomination  of  General  Grant  in  the  Convention  was  made  by 
General  John  A.  Logan  in  a  vigorous  and  eloquent  speech.  Logan  was 
a  type  of  the  Republicans  that  the  war  and  the  issues  of  the  war  had 
made.  Although  he  was  a  Douglas  Democrat,  the  district  that  he 
represented  in  Southern  Illinois  in  1861  wras  almost  as  completely 
secessionist  as  those  across  the  Mississippi  in  Arkansas,  or 
across  the  Ohio  in  Kentucky.  His  constituents  deeply  resented  his 
loyalty  in  Congress  when  the  war  began,  and  when  he  returned  to 
raise  a  regiment  after  the  adjournment  they  at  first  turned  from  him 
in  disdain.  But  his  eloquence  and  zeal  overcame  their  prejudices,  and 
the  regiment  was  raised.  His  first  battle  with  his  regiment  brought  a 
recommendation  from  Grant  that  he  be  made  a  brigadier-general.  In 
the  subsequent  campaigns  no  soldier  of  the  Union  was  more  intrepid 
than  "  the  Black  Eagle  of  Illinois,"  and,  a  major-general  at  the 
close  of  the  war,  he  was  now  in  a  position  to  repay  Grant's  recom- 
mendation for  his  first  promotion  by  naming  Grant  to  the  Chicago 
Convention  for  President  of  the  United  States.  No  othf  '  candidate 
was  named  in  opposition,  a  thing  unprecedented  in  National  Conven- 
tions— and  Grant  was  nominated  by  a  unanimous  vote,  not  merely 
by  making  the  vote  unanimous.  When  the  result  was  announced  it 
was  received  with  a  great  shout  just  as  if  it  had  been  a  surprise. 

The  nomination  for  Vice-President  was  no  mere  perfunctory  regis- 
try of  the  will  of  the  people.  As  many  as  eleven  candidates  had  hopes 
of  carrying  off  the  prize.  Of  these  the  most  hopeful  were  Wade,  of 
Ohio;  Fenton,  of  New  York;  Wilson,  of  Massachusetts,  and  Colfax, 
of  Indiana.  The  other  candidates  who  were  supported  by  the  dele- 
gations from  their  own  States  were  Curtin,  of  Pennsylvania;  Hamlin, 
of  Maine;  Speed,  of  Kentucky;  Harlan,  of  Iowa,  and  Creswell,  of 
Maryland.  The  nomination  of  Henry  Wilson,  which  was  the  first 
made,  came  from  the  Virginia  delegation.  Then  an  obstreperous 
delegate  from  Pennsylvania,  disobeying  the  instructions  of  his  State 
Convention,  named  Schuyler  Colfax.  This  impertinence  disconcerted 
the  friends  of  Colfax  for  a  moment,  but  when  the  applause  that  fol- 


THE  GRANT  AND  COLFAX  CAMPAIGN.  249 

lowed  the  mention  of  his  name  ended  he  was  formally  nominated  by 
Henry  S.  Lane,  of  Indiana.  The  nomination  of  Wade  followed,  and 
was  seconded  by  General  Schurz.  Fenton  was  put  in  nomination  by 
Lyman  Tremaine.  Each  nomination  being-  accompanied  by  a  speech, 
speech-making  began  to  be  tiresome,  and  the  delegates  were  begin- 
ning to  show  their  impatience  with  the  orators.  Mr.  Spalding.  in  sup- 
porting the  candidature  of  Senator  Wade,  pointed  out  the  fact  that 
this  was  the  first  time  in  the  National  Convention  when  the  Ohio 
delegation  was  a  unit  for  an  Ohio  candidate;  and  General  Sickles 
made  an  eloquent  speech  in  behalf  of  Governor  Fenton,  whose  ambi- 
tion had  prevented  him  from  becoming  President  of  the  Convention. 
But  even  speech-making  must  come  to  an  end,  and  at  last  the  ballot- 
ing began.  There  were  five  ballots,  as  follows: 

1st.         2d.          3d.         4th.       5th. 

Benjamin  P.  Wade,  of  Ohio 147         170         178        206          38 

Keuben  E.  Fenton,  of  New  York .  126         144         139         144          69 

Henry  Wilson,  of  Massachusetts.  119         114         101           87 

Sclmyler  Coif  ax,  of  Indiana 115         145         165         186         541 

Andrew  G.Curtin,  of  Pennsylvania  51           45           40 

Hannibal  Hamlin,  of  Maine 28          30          25          25 

James  Speed,  of  Kentucky 22 

James  Harlan,  of  Iowa 16 

John  A.  J.  Creswell,  of  Maryland.  14 

Samuel  C.  Pomeroy,  of  Kansas.  .  6 

William  D.Kelley, of  Pennsylvania  4 

An  analysis  of  the  vote  shows  that  Mr.  Wade  started  with  a  good 
lead  and  gained  strength  on  the  three  succeeding  ballots.  He  had 
been  seventeen  years  in  the  Senate  and  was  then  its  president.  If 
Johnson  had  been  convicted  in  the  impeachment  trial  Wrade  would 
have  been  the  logical  candidate  for  Vice-President,  and  there  is  no 
reason  to  doubt  that  he  would  have  been  nominated.  Next  to  Wade 
in  strength  at  the  outset  was  Fenton.  In  Congress  he  had  not 
been  conspicuous  as  a  parliamentarian,  but  he  was  a  man  of  sound 
judgment  and  an  acute  political  manager.  He  had  been  twice  elected 
Governor  of  New  York,  and  had  wrested  the  control  of  the  party  in 
that  State  from  the  powerful  grasp  of  Thurlow  Weed.  He  held  the 
second  place  in  the  balloting  until  the  fourth  ballot,  when  he  was 
passed  by  Mr.  Colfax.  On  the  first  ballot  Senator  WTilson  had  three 
more  votes  than  Colfax,  but  he  lost  steadily,  while  the  Speaker  gained 
as  the  voting  proceeded,  until  on  the  fifth  ballot  it  became  apparent 
that  Wade  and  Colfax  were  close  together,  with  Colfax  in  the  lead. 


250  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

Then  there  was  a  break,  and  Colfax  was  nominated.  Wade's  failure 
was  due  in  a  measure  to  the  traditional  insincerity  of  Ohio  delegations 
toward  Ohio  candidates.  On  the  second  ballot  four  of  the  Ohio  dele- 
gates broke  from  Wade  and  went  over  to  Colfax.  Wade's  strength 
on  the  fourth  ballot  came  from  Pennsylvania.  If  Ohio  had  not  been 
divided,  the  ticket  would  have  been  Grant  and  Wade,  instead  of  Grant 
and  Colfax. 

The  popularity  of  Schuyler  Colfax  at  the  time  of  his  nomination 
was  very  great.  He  had  been  three  times  chosen  Speaker  of  the 
House  of  representatives — a  record  only  surpassed  by  that  of  Henry 
Clay.  He  had  presided  with  dignity  and  commanding  skill  during 
the  most  passionate  period  in  the  history  of  Congress.  His  parlia- 
mentary ability  had  been  demonstrated  by  the  success  that  attended 
the  labors  of  two  Congresses  in  passing  all  party  measures  over  the 
Presidential  veto.  He  was  a  thorough  party  man,  tried  and  approved, 
and  his  nomination  meant  that  the  party  had  not  repeated  the  mis- 
take of  18(54.  No  similar  nomination  ever  before  created  so  much 
enthusiasm.  When  he  left  the  Speaker's  room  that  day  the  employees 
of  the  Capitol  gathered  round  him.  Passing  through  the  Capitol 
grounds  and  along  Pennsylvania  avenue  he  was  greeted  everywhere 
by  a  multitude  rejoicing  in  his  nomination.  In  the  Convention,  and 
afterward  in  the  campaign,  he  had  the  assistance  of  the  corps  of 
Washington  correspondents,  and  when  he  was  elected  he  was,  after 
General  Grant,  the  most  popular  man  in  the  United  States. 

The  formal  tender  of  the  nominations  to  Grant  and  Colfax  was 
made  at  General  Grant's  house  in  Washington,  on  the  29th  of  May. 
The  addresses  to  the  two  candidates,  who  were  standing  side  by  side, 
were  made  by  General  Hawley,  attended  by  the  committee  appointed 
by  the  Convention.  A  brilliant  company  gathered  to  hear  the 
speeches  and  witness  the  ceremony.  General  Hawley's  addresses 
were  both  eloquent.  Grant's  response  accepting  the  nomination  was 
very  brief,  but,  like  all  his  utterances,  fitting  and  direct.  Colfax 
made  a  longer  reply,  but  it,  too,  was  very  brief  and  pointed.  "  Since 
the  General  of  our  armies,  with  his  heroic  followers,  crushed  the  re- 
bellion," Mr.  Colfax  said,  speaking  of  the  party,  "  the  keynote  of  its 
policy,  that  loyalty  should  govern  what  loyalty  has  preserved,  has 
been  worthy  of  its  honored  record  in  the  war."  Then  the  campaign 
began  without  waiting  for  the  action  of  the  discredited  Democracy. 
Grant's  letter  of  acceptance  contained  the  historic  phrase  that  was 
heard  everywhere  throughout  the  canvass — "  Let  us  have  peace!  " 

Great  interest  was  felt  throughout  the  country  in  the  action  of  the 
Democratic  National  Convention,  which  had  been  called  to  meet  in 
New  York  on  the  Fourth  of  July.  Historically  this  interest  is  as  great 


THE  GRANT  AND  COLFAX  CAMPAIGN.  251 

now  as  it  was  then  politically.  The  party  that  had  come  out  of  the 
war  disgraced  by  the  pusillanimous  platform  of  1864  was  determined 
to  begin  a  new  life  regardless  of  its  past  record.  When  the  Conven- 
tion met  in  Tammany  Hall — a  meeting-place  that  was  in  itself 
typical  of  the  influences  that  were  to  control  its  action — the  charac- 
ter of  the  platform  and  the  composition  of  the  ticket  were  still  prob- 
lematical. There  were  three  names  in  which  the  interest  centered 
for  the  place  at  the  head  of  the  ticket — George  H.  Pendleton,  of 
Ohio;  Andrew  Johnson,  of  Tennessee,  and  Salmon  P.  Chase,  of  Ohio. 
Each  of  these  men  represented  a  distinct  policy.  Pendleton  was  the 
logical  candidate,  and  the  financial  plank  of  the  platform  was  made 
to  fit  the  new  Democratic  heresy  of  which  he  was  the  champion.  This 
was  the  famous  "  Ohio  idea."  The  proposition  was  to  pay  the  national 
debt  in  the  depreciated  paper  currency  that  a  long  war  had  entailed 
upon  the  country.  If  not  the  author  of  this  "  idea,"  Mr.  Pendleton  was 
its  most  zealous  advocate,  and  his  friends  believed  he  could  be  nomi- 
nated on  this  issue.  It  took  form  in  the  platform  in  the  declaration 
in  favor  of  "  One  currency  for  the  Government  and  the  people,  the 
laborer  and  the  officeholder,  the  pensioner  and  the  soldier,  the  pro- 
ducer and  the  bondholder."  To  the  Democratic  cry  of  "  The  same 
currency  for  the  bondholder  and  the  plowholder,"  the  Republicans 
had  an  effective  answer,  "  The  best  currency  for  both  plowholder  and 
bondholder."  Pendleton  succeeded  in  imposing  his  financial  ideas 
upon  his  party,  but  missed  the  prize  that  he  expected  as  a  candidate 
to  fit  the  platform. 

Johnson  had  wrecked  his  administration  for  a  Democratic  nomi- 
nation, and  was  even  more  unfortunate  than  Pendleton.  The  Demo- 
cratic minority  in  Congress  encouraged  and  supported  him  in  his 
long  conflict  with  the  majority,  and  then  showed  him  that  although 
Democrats  loved  the  treason,  they  despised  the  traitor.  He  received 
65  votes  on  the  first  ballot  in  the  Convention,  but  was  then  aban- 
doned, except  by  a  handful  of  supporters  for  a  few  ballots.  He  made 
a  few  friends  in  the  South,  but  his  sacrifices  were  in  vain,  and  he  went 
out  of  the  Convention  without  a  party,  and  with  his  administration 
more  completely  discredited  than  was  Tyler's  twenty-four,  and  Fill- 
more's  sixteen  years  before. 

The  real  interest  of  the  Convention  turned  on  the  candidature  of 
Chief  Justice  Chase.  Although  he  only  received  one-half  of  a  vote  in 
any  of  the  twenty-one  ballots,  his  possible  nomination  was  the  pivot 
on  which  all  the  intrigues  in  the  metropolis  turned.  The  men  by 
whom  his  candidature  was  promoted  were  the  astute  leaders  of  the 
New  York  Regency,  and  a  few  of  the  extreme  Democrats  of  the  war 
period,  notably  Alexander  Long  and  Clement  L.  Vallandigham.  There 


252  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

was  nothing  remarkable  in  the  fact  that  Chase  was  found  in  such 
peculiar  company.  He  never  had  been  a  thorough  Republican.  He 
was  a  Democrat  by  instinct,  and  if  there  had  been  no  slavery  question 
he  never  would  have  been  in  opposition  to  the  Democratic  party. 
Five  years  before  he  had  sought  to  bring  about  a  reorganization  of 
the  Democracy  to  promote  his  nomination  as  a  candidate  against 
Mr.  Lincoln  in  1864.  He  did  not  despair  of  effecting  such  a  reorganiza- 
tion in  1868.  But  on  one  point  he  was  inflexible — insistence  upon 
universal  suffrage  as  distinctive  Democratic  doctrine.  So  strong  was 
his  desire  to  become  President  of  the  United  States  that  it  is  probable 
he  would  have  accepted  the  nomination  of  the  New  York  Convention, 
even  without  this  declaration,  if  his  friends  had  been  able  to  secure 
it  for  him.  The  purpose  was  to  place  him  before  the  people  without 
regard  to  his  views  on  this  question,  and  without  any  attempt  to 
harmonize  his  principles  with  the  principles  of  the  platform.  In  the 
long  series  of  ballotings  that  finally  resulted  in  the  nomination  of 
Horatio  Seymour  this  purpose  was  never  lost  sight  of. 

The  determination  to  beat  Pendleton  was  as  strong  in  the  Demo- 
cratic Convention  in  New  York  in  1868  as  the  successful  effort  to 
defeat  Seward  in  the  Republican  Convention  in  Chicago  in  1860.  The 
expedients  by  which  this  was  finally  effected  were  very  adroit.  The 
first  diversion  was  the  use  of  the  name  of  Thomas  A.  Hendricks,  of 
Indiana.  This  naturally  caused  a  break  in  the  Indiana  delegation, 
and  served  to  draw  off  a  part  of  Pendleton's  support.  New  York 
dropped  Sanford  E.  Church,  who  had  been  used  to  mask  the  purpose 
of  the  New  York  politicians,  and  voted  for  Hendricks  with  an  osten- 
tatious air  of  satisfaction.  Pendleton  had  reached  his  highest  vote 
on  the  eighth  ballot,  and  was  steadily  declining.  Meanwhile  General 
W.  S.  Hancock  had  been  steadily  gaining  strength,  and  he  soon  passed 
Hendricks  and  obtained  the  lead.  Between  the  eighteenth  and  the 
twenty-first  ballots  the  contest  seemed  to  be  between  Hancock  and 
Hendricks,  with  Hendricks  constantly  encroaching  on  Hancock's 
lead,  until  there  was  a  difference  of  only  31  votes  betwreen  them.  The 
following  table  will  show  the  general  course  of  the  balloting: 

1.  8.  16.  18.  19.  21. 

George  H.  Pendleton,  of  Ohio 105  1561  1071  561  —  — 

Andrew  Johnson,  of  Tennessee 65  6  51  10  —  — 

WinfieldS.  Hancock,  of  Pennsylvania  331  28  1131144113511351 

Sanford  E.  Church,  of  New  York 33 

Asa  Packer,  of  Pennsylvania 26  26  22  — 

Joel  Parker,  of  New  Jersey 13  7  7  31  —  — 

James  E.  English,  of  Connecticut .....   16  6  —  —  6  19 


THE  GRANT  AND  COLFAX  CAMPAIGN.  253 

James  R.  Doolittle,  of  Wisconsin  ____   13       12       12  12       12       12 

Thomas  A.  Hendricks,  of  Indiana  ____     2|     75       70i  87     107i  132 

Salmon  P.  Chase,  of  Ohio  ...........  -  i        £        i 

All  others...  .....................     9           £  3^     33 


The  twenty-second  ballot  was  ordered,  but  it  had  progressed 
through  only  a  few  States  when  some  votes  were  cast  for  Horatio 
Seymour,  the  President  of  the  Convention.  Mr.  Seymour  promptly 
interposed,  and  declined  to  be  a  candidate.  The  voting  went  on  with- 
out decisive  result,  and  it  was  not  intended  that  there  should  be  a  de- 
cisive result  until  the  following  day,  when  it  was  arranged  that  Mr. 
Seymour  should  leave  the  chair  and,  taking  the  floor,  urge  the  nomi- 
nation of  Chief  Justice  Chase.  This  plot  was  defeated  by  the  action 
of  the  Ohio  delegation.  The  delegation  had  withdrawn  Pendleton's 
name  in  the  morning,  and  wras  thoroughly  angered  by  the  course  of 
events.  During  the  progress  of  the  twrenty-second  ballot  the  dele- 
gates were  in  consultation,  but  re-entered  the  Convention  in  time  for 
the  call  of  the  State,  and  created  a  sensation  by  casting  the  vote  of 
Ohio  for  Horatio  Seymour.  Mr.  Seymour  protested,  but  New  York 
sustained  the  action  of  Ohio,  and  there  was  a  stampede  for  Seymour. 
The  Convention  became  a  bedlam,  and  while  the  uproar  lasted  Mr. 
Seymour  was  overborne  and  the  nomination  was  made. 

With  Mr.  Seymour  nominated  the  Convention  determined  to  give 
him  a  running  mate  who  would  emphasize  the  most  extreme  and 
revolutionary  propositions  of  the  platform.  The  candidate  selected 
was  General  Frank  P.  Blair,  Jr.  The  Blair  family  had  not  only  re- 
turned to  the  Democratic  party  to  which  it  naturally  belonged,  but 
Frank  Blair,  the  younger,  had  written  an  extraordinary  letter  in 
which  he  said:  "  There  is  but  one  way  to  restore  the  Government  and 
the  Constitution,  and  that  is  for  the  President  to  declare  these  acts 
null  and  void,  compel  the  army  to  undo  its  usurpations  at  the  South, 
dispossess  the  carpet-bag  State  governments,  allow  the  white  people 
to  reorganize  their  own  governments,  and  elect  Senators  and  Repre- 
sentatives." This  extreme  doctrine  was  echoed  in  the  declaration  of 
the  platform,  "  that  we  regard  the  Reconstruction  Acts  of  Congress 
as  usurpations,  unconstitutional,  revolutionary,  and  void."  Thus  the 
candidates  fitted  the  platform,  and  the  canvass  turned  upon  the  two 
issues  upon  which  the  Democratic  party  chose  to  fight  the  battle— 
the  payment  of  the  national  debt  in  depreciated  paper  currency  and 
the  overthrow  of  Reconstruction. 

The  campaign  was  marked  by  great  earnestness,  but  it  possessed 
fewer  of  the  uniformed  marching  clubs  than  was  usual  before  the  war. 
Four  years  of  fighting  had  given  the  young  men  a  surfeit  of  parading, 


254  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

and  torchlight  processions  were  no  longer  as  popular  as  they  once 
were.  There  was  no  lack  of  enthusiasm,  however,  and  there  never 
was  a  more  earnest  or  confident  canvass.  The  platforms,  the  candi- 
dates, and  the  reckless  utterances  of  Southern  men  like  Wade  Hamp- 
ton and  Robert  Toombs,  put  the  Democrats  on  the  defensive  from  the 
outset.  Hampton  took  to  himself  great  credit  for  the  declaration  that 
the  Reconstruction  Acts  were  usurpations,  unconstitutional,  revolu- 
tionary, and  void.  Toombs,  speaking  at  Atlanta,  declared  that  "  these 
so-called  governments  and  legislatures  which  have  been  established 
in  our  midst  shall  at  once  be  made  to  vacate.  The  Convention  at  New 
York  appointed  Frank  Blair  specially  to  oust  them."  Such  avowals 
could  not  fail  to  injure  Blair,  and,  through  Blair,  the  ticket  of  which 
he  was  a  part.  So  pronounced  was  his  unpopularity,  in  consequence, 
that  before  the  canvass  ended  the  New  York  World  turned  against 
him,  and  frantically  demanded  that  he  should  be  withdrawn  from  the 
ticket.  This  was  after  the  October  elections,  in  a  year  when  the  Oc- 
tober States  had  gone  Republican.  Vigorous  efforts  were  made  by 
the  Democrats  to  carry  the  State  tickets  in  Pennsylvania  and  Indiana. 
In  the  latter  State  Mr.  Hendricks  was  nominated  for  Governor,  with 
the  hope  that  his  personal  popularity  might  secure  the  success  of  the 
ticket,  but  he  was  beaten.  As  a  last  resort,  Mr.  Seymour  followed  the 
example  of  Mr.  Douglas  in  1860,  and  made  an  electioneering  tour 
through  Western  New  York,  Ohio,  Illinois,  and  Pennsylvania.  He 
spoke  once,  and  sometimes  twice,  daily,  and  only  ended  his  tour  on 
the  eve  of  the  elections.  As  he  was  a  versatile  and  brilliant  orator, 
seductive  in  appeal,  and  able  and  earnest  in  urging  a  bad  cause,  the 
Democrats  indulged  the  hope  that  he  might  be  able  to  reverse  the 
results  of  the  October  elections  and  secure  the  electoral  votes  of  Penn- 
sylvania, Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illinois.  In  all  these  States  the  Repub- 
licans had  majorities  so  low  as  to  approach  the  danger  line.  In  In- 
diana Conrad  Baker's  majority  over  Hendricks  was  only  961.  Phila- 
delphia gave  a  small  Democratic  majority,  and  in  the  State,  which 
was  expected  to  give  20,000,  there  was  a  meager  Republican  major- 
ity of  about  10,000.  In  Ohio  also  there  was  a  marked  decrease  in 
the  Republican  strength,  and  altogether  the  case  was  not  so  hopeless 
for  Seymour  and  Blair  as  it  had  seemed  earlier  in  the  canvass.  The 
unexpected  hopefulness  of  the  outlook  for  the  Democrats  not  only 
aroused  the  Republicans,  but  the  business  interests  of  the  country  to 
the  dangers  of  the  situation.  The  triumph  of  the  Greenback  party, 
merely  because  there  was  a  strong  prejudice  against  negro  suffrage, 
could  not  fail  to  prove  a  disaster,  not  only  to  the  restoration  of  the 
South,  but  to  the  business  prosperity  of  the  North.  A  movement  of 
the  business  men  to  defeat  the  Democrats  was  made  in  the  closing 


THE  GRANT  AND  COLFAX  CAMPAIGN.  255 

weeks  of  the  campaign  that  averted  the  danger  and  gave  the  Repub- 
licans an  overwhelming  triumph. 

In  1868  the  Republicans  carried  twenty-six  States  for  Grant  and 
Colfax,  and  the  Democrats  secured  the  electoral  vote  of  seven  States 
for  Seymour  and  Blair.  Georgia  would  have  increased  the  Demo- 
cratic States  to  eight,  but  the  vote  of  that  State  was  treated  as  was 
the  vote  of  Missouri  in  1820.  If  there  had  been  a  solid  South  in  1868, 
as  there  has  been  since  1876,  Mr.  Seymour  would  have  had  a  majority 
in  the  Electoral  College.  Grant  and  Colfax  received  214  electoral 
votes  and  Seymour  and  Blair  80.  In  the  Republican  column  were  all 
the  Southern  States  except  Virginia,  Mississippi,  and  Texas,  which 
did  not  vote;  Georgia,  the  vote  of  which  was  not  counted;  Louisiana, 
which  was  carried  by  the  Democrats  by  intimidation  and  fraud;  and 
Delaware,  Maryland,  and  Kentucky.  In  the  Democratic  column,  by  a 
reaction  that  unfortunately  does  not  stand  by  itself  in  American 
politics,  were  the  three  States  of  New  York,  New  Jersey,  and  Oregon. 
Two  of  these,  New  York  and  New  Jersey,  gave  Mr.  Seymour  one-half 
of  his  electoral  vote.  New  Jersey  always  has  been  an  uncertain  State. 
It  voted  for  McClellan  in  1864,  for  Grant  in  1872,  and  for  Tilden  in 
1876  side  by  side  with  New  York.  The  defection  of  New  York  was 
owing  to  the  immense  Democratic  vote  of  New  York  City.  No  other 
part  of  the  country  had  so  great  a  stake  in  Republican  success  as  the 
metropolis,  but  the  Tammany  vote  in  national  contests  is  always  cast 
regardless  of  local  interests.  This  can  be  explained  only  by  the  char- 
acter of  the  population — foreign  by  birth,  un-American  in  sympathy, 
and  easily  controlled  by  the  political  leaders.  Mr.  Seymour  was  very 
popular  in  1868  with  the  element  that  had  resisted  the  draft  in  1863. 
It  was  this  element  that  gave  him  the  electoral  vote  of  the  State,  be- 
cause he  had  resisted  the  war,  against  the  great  soldier  who  had 
achieved  the  triumph  of  the  Republic. 

Although  the  vote  of  Louisiana  was  counted  in  the  joint  convention 
of  the  two  Houses,  both  branches  of  Congress  being  Republican,  it 
was  known  at  the  time  that  the  returns  were  fraudulent,  and  that  the 
elections  had  been  conducted  with  intimidation  and  violence.  Sey- 
mour's alleged  majority  of  47,000  was  greater  than  the  entire  Demo- 
cratic vote  of  the  State.  The  vote  claimed  for  Seymour  was  80,225— 
that  allotted  to  Grant  33,263.  In  1860  the  combined  Democratic  vote 
for  Breckinridge  and  Douglas  was  30,306 — the  vote  for  Bell  50,510— 
making  a  total  of  80,816.  Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the  white 
vote  of  Louisiana  was  not  so  great  by  many  thousands  in  1868  as  in 
1860,  Mr.  Seymour  was  given  a  reputed  vote  of  only  a  few  hundreds — 
591,  to  be  exact — short  of  the  whole  vote  of  the  State  before  the  war. 
In  1867  the  registered  vote  was  45,109.  The  seven  electoral  votes  of 


256  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

Louisiana  could  do  Mr.  Seymour  no  good,  and  they  could  do  General 
Grant  no  harm.  There  was  as  yet  no  official  evidence  of  the  intimida- 
tion and  outrages  in  the  State,  and  so  it  was  agreed  to  receive  and 
count  the  returns.  But  subsequent  investigations  show  a  worse  con- 
dition than  was  even  suspected.  "  From  these  investigations/'  it  was 
said  in  an  official  report  after  the  inquiry  ordered  by  Congress,  "  it 
appears  that  over  two  thousand  persons  were  killed,  wounded,  and 
otherwise  injured  in  that  State  within  a  few  weeks  of  the  Presidential 
election  of  1868;  that  half  the  State  was  overrun  by  violence,  midnight 
raids,  secret  murders,  and  open  riots,  which  kept  the  people  in  con- 
stant terror,  until  the  Republicans  surrendered  all  claims,  and  then 
the  election  was  carried  by  the  Democracy."  Although  Louisiana 
had  resumed  her  place  in  the  Union  only  a  few  months  before,  we  al- 
ready hear  of  the  Ku-Klux  conspiracy  that  kept  the  South  in  a  con- 
dition of  anarchy  for  many  years,  and  that  made  the  work  of  restora- 
tion so  difficult.  The  effort  of  1865  to  make  the  Southern  States  Slave 
States  once  more  had  been  thwarted,  but  Louisiana  now  set  an  ex- 
ample of  fraud  and  force  that  kept  the  South  in  a  condition  of  dis- 
order until  the  frenzy  had  spent  itself.  Before  General  Grant  was  in- 
augurated President  of  the  United  States  the  last  of  the  Constitu- 
tional Amendments  was  adopted — the  Fifteenth.  It  is  very  brief,  but 
very  comprehensive: 

The  right  of  citizens  of  the  United  States  to  vote  shall  not  be  denied  or  abridged  by  the 
United  States  or  by  any  State  on  account  of  race,  color,  or  previous  condition  of  servitude. 

It  took  its  place  in  the  organic  law  as  the  final  pledge  of  the  Ameri- 
can people  to  the  oppressed  race.  This  was  a  step  far  in  advance  of 
the  declaration  of  the  Chicago  platform,  but  it  was  an  act  of  necessity 
as  well  as  of  justice.  It  was  opposed  by  the  Democrats,  as  the  two 
previous  amendments  had  been,  but  the  opposition  was  not  so  strenu- 
ous or  so  bitter.  In  the  debate  in  the  Senate  Garrett  Davis,  of  Ken- 
tucky, charged  that  it  was  intended  by  the  Republican  party  to  per- 
petuate its  own  power.  To  this  Mr.  Wilson,  of  Massachusetts,  made 
an  effective  reply.  "  The  Senator  from  Kentucky  knowrs  and  I  know," 
Mr.  Wilson  said,  "  that  this  whole  struggle  to  give  equal  rights  and 
equal  privileges  to  all  citizens  of  the  United  States  has  been  an  un- 
popular one;  that  we  have  been  forced  to  struggle  against  passion 
and  prejudice  engendered  by  generations  of  wrong  and  oppression; 
that  we  have  been  compelled  to  struggle  against  great  interests  and 
powerful  political  organizations.  I  say  to  the  Senator  from  Ken- 
tucky that  the  struggle  of  the  last  years  to  give  freedom  to  four 
and  a  half  millions  of  men  wrho  were  held  in  slavery,  to  make  them 
citizens  of  the  United  States,  to  clothe  them  with  the  right  of  suffrage, 
to  give  them  the  privilege  of  being  voted  for,  to  make  them  in  all  re- 


THE  GRANT  AND  COLFAX  CAMPAIGN.  257 

spects  equal  to  the  white  citizens  of  the  United  States,  has  cost  the 
Ixepubliean  party  a  quarter  of  a  million  votes." 

The  morning  of  March  4,  1869,  opened  with  a  pouring  rain,  but 
before  the  time  arrived  for  the  inaugural  procession  to  begin  its 
inarch  to  the  Capitol  the  clouds  parted  and  the  sun  shone  in  all  its 
splendor.  One  feature  of  these  quadrennial  pageants  was  missing— 
the  presence  of  the  retiring  President  at  the  right  side  of  the  Presi- 
dent-elect. The  failure  to  perform  his  share  in  the  official  etiquette, 
that  usage  had  given  the  force  of  an  unwritten  law,  was  an  involun- 
tary but  a  fitting  close  to  Johnson's  turbulent  and  discredited  ad- 
ministration. In  only  two  previous  instances  had  there  been  a  similar 
failure  to  observe  the  etiquette  of  the  occasion — when  John  Adams 
hastily  left  Washington  to  avoid  meeting  Thomas  Jefferson,  and  when 
John  Quincy  Adams  refrained  from  escorting  Andrew  Jackson  to  the 
Senate  Chamber.  In  this  case,  however,  Johnson  was  not  to  blame 
for  the  apparent  discourtesy  to  the  President-elect.  Grant's  dislike  of 
him  was  so  great,  because  of  Johnson's  effort  to  place  him  in  a  false 
position  in  connection  with  the  removal  of  Secretary  Stanton,  that 
lie  was  unwilling  to  ride  to  the  Capitol  in  the  same  carriage  with  his 
predecessor.  Johnson  left  the  Capitol  at  noon,  wrhere  it  was  said  he 
had  been  detained  signing  bills,  and  Grant  drove  unaccompanied, 
except  by  his  private  secretary.  The  procession  was  unusually  im- 
posing. The  colored  military  turned  out  in  force.  The  streets  and 
grounds  leading  to  the  east  front  of  the  Capitol  were  densely  crowded. 
Never  before,  not  even  in  war  times,  was  Washington  so  full  of 
strangers.  No  unusual  incidents  attended  the  ceremony,  and  no  un- 
toward event  marred  the  occasion.  In  the  evening  the  inaugural  ball 
was  given  in  the  new  wing  of  the  Treasury  Department,  but  the 
White  House  was  in  the  hands  of  the  upholsterers,  and  it  was  not  oc- 
cupied by  the  President's  family  for  some  days  after  the  inaugura- 
tion. 

An  era  of  peace  had  set  in,  that,  through  many  vicissitudes,  was  to 
end  in  perfect  reconciliation  between  North  and  South  before  the  close 
of  the  century. 


II. 

THE  PUBLIC  CREDIT. 

War  Finance  and  Currency — The  Demand  Notes — Suspension  of 
Specie  Payments — Measures  of  Relief — The  Legal  Tenders — El- 
bridge  G.  Spaulding — The  Democratic  Contention — Republicans 
Opposed  to  the  Measure — Popularity  of  the  Greenbacks — Value 
of  the  Legal  Tender  Notes  to  the  Government — Fluctuations  in 
Gold — The  National  Banking  System — Constitutionality  of  the 
Legal  Tender  Acts — Payment  of  the  National  Debt  in  Coin — Sec- 
retary McCulloch — Secretary  Boutwell — Efforts  at  Funding  the 
National  Debt — Panic  of  1873 — The  Greenback  Craze — Failure 
of  Congress  to  Afford  Relief — Election  of  a  Democratic  House  of 
Representatives — The  Resumption  Act  of  1875 — Demonetization 
of  Silver. 

ET  it  be  understood,"  said  President  Grant  in  his  Inaugu- 
ral Address,  "  that  no  repudiator  of  one  farthing  of  our 
public  debt  will  be  trusted  in  public  place,  and  it  will  go 
far  to  strengthen  our  public  credit,  which  ought  to  be  the 
best  in  the  world." 

It  was  inevitable  that  after  four  years  of  civil  war,  followed  by  four 
years  of  conflict  between  the  Congress  and  the  Administration,  the 
national  finances  and  currency  should  be  deranged  and  the  public 
credit  impaired.  The  national  loans  had  followed  each  other  rapidly. 
Bonds  were  issued  in  vast  amounts  and  bearing  high  rates  of  interest. 
Paper  currency,  practically  irredeemable,  had  become  a  necessity, 
and  it  was,  in  fact,  the  only  currency  of  the  people  when  General 
Grant  succeeded  Andrew  Johnson  as  President  of  the  United  States. 
Secretary  Chase,  when  he  recommended  the  first  issues  of  Treasury 
notes,  was  hopeful  that  the  integrity  of  such  issues  might  be  main- 
tained. "  But  the  greatest  care  will  be  requisite,"  he  said,  "  to  pre- 
vent the  degradation  of  such  issues  into  an  irredeemable  paper  cur- 
rency, than  which  no  more  certainly  fatal  expedient  for  impoverish- 
ing the  masses  and  discrediting  the  government  of  any  country  can 
well  be  devised." 

The  first  issue  of  non-interest-bearing  Treasury  notes  was  for  fifty 
millions  of  dollars.  They  were  called  "  demand  notes,"  because  they 
were  payable  on  demand.  Although  these  notes  were  as  good  as  gold, 
and  were  maintained  at  par  throughout  the  entire  period  of  gold  flue- 


THE   PUBLIC   CREDIT.  259 

tuations,  it  was  with  difficulty  that  the  issue  was  floated.  In  fact,  not 
more  than  two-thirds  of  the  fifty  millions  were  actually  issued.  Some 
of  the  railroads  at  first  declined  to  accept  them  for  fares  and  freight. 
One  of  the  clerks  of  the  Treasury  Department,  Mr.  J.  W.  Schuckers, 
afterward  Chase's  biographer,  had  difficulty  in  paying  his  hotel  bill 
with  them  at  one  of  the  prominent  Philadelphia  hotels.  A  New  York 
bank  refused  to  receive  a  large  sum  in  "  demand  notes,"  except  as  a 
special  deposit,  and  thus  unwittingly  gave  the  depositor  the  benefit 
of  their  appreciation,  which  kept  pace  with  gold.  All  this  is  not  sur- 
prising when  it  is  remembered  that  when  Secretary  Chase  began  his 
financial  operations  the  Government  of  the  United  States  was  utterly 
without  credit.  When  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  went  to  New 
York  in  18(51  to  get  his  first  loan,  the  London  Times  said  he  had  "  co- 
erced |50,000,000  from  the  banks,  but  he  would  not  fare  so  well  at  the 
London  Exchange."  The  London  Economist  was  confident  that  the 
United  States  could  not  float  any  of  their  loans,  "  for  Europe  won't 
lend  them;  America  cannot."  "  No  pressure,"  said  the  Times,  at  a 
later  period,  "  that  ever  threatened  is  equal  to  that  which  now  hangs 
over  the  United  States;  and  it  may  safely  be  said  that  if,  in  future 
generations,  they  faithfully  meet  their  liabilities,  they  will  fairly  earn 
a  fame  which  will  shine  throughout  the  world." 

It  was  this  fame  the  Republican  party  was  determined  that  the 
United  States  should  earn  when  it  nominated  and  elected  General 
Grant.  The  Government  had  shown  its  capacity  to  borrow;  now  it  was 
to  show  its  capacity  to  pay.  Not  only  the  loans,  but  the  issues  of  Treas- 
ury  notes  not  payable  on  demand,  in  the  mean  time,  had  reached 
colossal  proportions.  It  is  not  the  purpose  of  this  chapter  to  follow 
these  operations  in  detail.  The  effort  to  maintain  the  specie  standard 
had  come  to  an  end  as  early  as  December  30,  1861,  when  the  New 
York  banks  suspended.  It  would  be  scarcely  true  to  say  that  their 
example  was  followed  by  the  country  banks.  Most  of  these  had  ceased 
to  pay  specie  long  before.  Indeed,  many  of  them  had  not  resumed 
specie  payments  after  the  panic  of  1857.  The  suspension  of  the  New 
York  banks  touched  the  public  credit  more  nearly  than  it  was  felt  in 
its  effects  upon  the  banking  system  of  the  country,  as  it  was  then 
conducted.  For  many  years  the  Government  had  paid  coin  over  its 
counters.  The  demand  notes  had  a  coin  basis.  When  these  were 
presented  for  redemption  the  Treasury  would  soon  be  drained  of  its 
coin.  For  ten  years  before  the  war  we  had  been  sending  the  imperish- 
able product  of  our  mines  abroad,  and  receiving  in  return  perishable 
products  from  Europe,  because  we  could  buy  foreign  fabrics  cheaper 
than  we  could  make  domestic  goods.  We  were  a  nation  of  spend- 
thrifts under  the  long  epoch  of  Democratic  rule,  and  when  we  came 


260  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

to  measure  ourselves  by  the  world's  standard  we  found  we  had  parted 
with  our  patrimony.  It  had  become  impossible  for  the  Treasury 
longer  to  pay  specie.  The  world's  treasures  were  not  for  us.  Con- 
federate bonds  were  taken  in  Europe  at  better  prices,  and  in  larger 
amounts,  than  the  bonds  of  the  United  States.  Our  greatest  enemy 
was  the  money  power  of  Europe,  with  the  Rothschilds  in  the  lead. 
Mr.  Chase's  demand  notes  became,  for  the  time  being,  so  far  as  the 
discredited  banks  were  concerned,  as  discredited  as  their  own  notes. 
There  was  only  one  way  out  of  the  difficulty — Treasury  notes  that 
could  be  made  to  pass  as  currency,  and  plenty  of  them. 

As  usually  happens  when  a  great  measure  of  public  relief  is  under 
consideration  at  Washington,  there  were  two  plans.  One  was  the 
plan  of  the  Administration,  as  represented  by  the  Treasury  Depart- 
ment ;  the  other  was  the  plan  of  Congress,  as  represented  by  the  House 
Committee  on  Ways  and  Means.  Secretary  Chase  favored  a  Banking 
Association.  The  Committee  on  Ways  and  Means  proposed  the  issue 
of  United  States  notes,  to  be  receivable  in  payment  of  Government 
duesofever3Tkind,andto  be  a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  all  debts,  both 
public  and  private.  In  the  end  both  plans  were  adopted,  Mr.  Chase's 
plan  taking  shape  in  the  system  of  national  banks  which  still  exists, 
and  the  other  plan  being  formulated  in  the  Legal  Tender  bill,  reported 
to  the  House  of  Representatives  from  the  Committee  on  Ways  and 
Means  by  E.  G.  Spaulding,  January  22, 1862. 

The  paternity  of  the  legal  tender  plan  is  usually  attributed  to 
Thaddeus  Stevens,  because  at  the  time  he  was  Chairman  of  Ways 
and  Means,  but  Mr.  Spaulding  is  entitled  to  rank  as  the  author  of 
the  measure.  Elbridge  G.  Spaulding  had  served  a  term  in  Congress  as 
early  as  1849-51.  He  was  afterward  State  Treasurer  of  New  York,  a 
member  of  the  Canal  Board  of  that  State,  and  president  of  the  Farm- 
ers' and  Mechanics'  Bank  of  Genesee,  at  Buffalo.  He  was  again 
elected  to  the  36th  Congress,  and  was  serving  on  the  Committee  on 
Ways  and  Means  in  the  37th  Congress  because  of  his  recognized  finan- 
cial ability.  He  introduced  the  original  Legal  Tender  bill  into  the 
House  December  30,  1861,  the  day  the  New  York  banks  suspended. 
Mr.  Spaulding  made  a  very  able  speech  in  behalf  of  the  measure — a 
measure  of  necessity,  not  of  choice,  a  measure  that  the  Constitution 
justified  in  the  emergency,  and  he  declared  that  by  this  plan  "  the 
Government  will  be  able  to  get  along  with  its  immediate  and  pressing 
necessities  without  being  obliged  to  force  its  bonds  on  the  market  at 
ruinous  rates  of  discount;  the  people  under  heavy  taxation  will  be 
shielded  against  high  rates  of  interest,  and  capitalists  will  be  afforded 
fair  compensation  for  the  use  of  their  money  during  the  pending 
struggle  for  national  existence."  One  of  the  most  determined  op- 


THE   PUBLIC   CREDIT.  261 

poueuts  of  the  measure  was  Mr.  Pendletou,  of  Ohio.  In  arguing 
against  the  legal  tender  feature  of  the  bill  he  said,  "  The  feature  of 
this  bill  which  first  strikes  every  thinking  man,  even  in  these  days  of 
novelties,  is  the  proposition  that  these  notes  shall  be  made  a  legal 
tender  in  discharge  of  all  pecuniary  obligations,  as  well  as  those 
which  have  accrued  in  virtue  of  contracts  already  made  as  those 
which  shall  hereafter  be  made.  Do  gentlemen  appreciate  the  full  im- 
port and  meaning  of  that  clause?  Do  they  realize  the  full  extent  to 
which  it  will  carry  them?  Every  contract  for  the  payment  of  gold  and 
silver  coin,  every  promissory  note,  every  bill  of  exchange,  every  lease 
reserving  rent,  every  loan  of  money  reserving  interest,  every  bond 
issued  by  this  Government,  is  a  contract  to  which  the  faith  of  the 
obligor  is  pledged,  that  the  amount,  whether  rent,  interest,  or  prin- 
cipal, shall  be  paid  in  the  gold  and  silver  coin  of  the  country." 

Six  years  later  he  was  a  candidate  for  President  of  the  United 
States  on  the  opposite  ground  that  the  principal  and  interest  of  United 
States  bonds  should  be  paid  in  greenbacks.  When  legal  tender  notes 
were  necessary  to  save  the  Union  Mr.  Pendleton  wanted  only  gold 
and  silver;  \vhen  the  country  needed  a  specie  basis  to  assure  its  pros- 
perity he  wanted  greenbacks. 

The  Democratic  contention  both  in  the  House  and  Senate  while  the 
bill  was  before  Congress  was  that  it  was  a  departure  from  the  obliga- 
tion to  pay  intrinsic  value.  "  If  you  violate  that  by  this  bill,  wrhich 
you  certainly  do,"  Mr.  J.  A.  Bayard,  of  Delaware,  declared,  in  an  em- 
phatic interrogatory,  "  how  can  you  expect  that  the  faith  of  the  com- 
munity will  be  given  to  the  law  which  you  now  pass,  in  which  you 
say  that  you  will  pay  hereafter  the  interest  on  your  debt  in  coin? 
Why  should  they  give  credit  to  that  declaration?  If  you  can  violate 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  in  the  face  of  your  oaths,  in  the 
face  of  its  palpable  provision,  what  security  do  you  offer  to  the  lender 
of  money?  "  The  Senate  had  wisely  amended  the  bill,  as  it  passed 
the  House,  providing  for  the  payment  of  the  interest  on  the  national 
debt  in  coin.  It  was  this  provision  that  the  Democrats  declared 
could  not  be  maintained,  and  that  they  afterward  attempted  to 
annul. 

That  a  measure  at  once  so  necessary  and  so  dangerous  should  meet 
with  Republican  opposition  was  to  be  expected.  None  was  more  re- 
luctant to  accept  it  than  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  Indeed  his 
reluctance  at  one  time  threatened  its  defeat.  At  last  he  was  com- 
pelled to  come  out  openly  in  favor  of  the  bill.  "  It  is  true,"  Mr.  Chase 
wrote  to  Mr.  Spaulding,  "  I  came  with  reluctance  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  legal  tender  clause  is  a  necessity,  but  I  came  to  it  decidedly 
and  I  supported  it  earnestly.  I  do  not  hesitate  when  I  have  made  up 


262  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

1113-  mind,  however  much  regret  I  may  feel  over  the  necessity  of  the 
conclusion  to  which  I  came.  .  .  .  Immediate  action  is  of  great  im- 
portance. The  Treasury  is  nearly  empty.  I  have  been  obliged  to 
draw  for  the  last  installment  of  the  November  loan;  so  soon  as  it  is 
paid,  I  fear  the  banks  generally  will  refuse  to  receive  the  United 
States  notes.  You  will  see  the  necessity  of  urging  the  bill  through 
without  delay.'' 

Some  of  the  ablest  Republicans  in  the  House  voted  against  the  bill. 
Among  them  were  Valentine  B.  Horton,  of  Ohio;  Justin  S.  Morrill, 
of  Vermont;  Roscoe  Conkliug,  F.  A.  Colliding,  and  Theodore  M.  Pom- 
ero}%  of  New  York;  Albert  G.  Porter,  of  Indiana;  Owen  Lovejoy,  of 
Illinois;  William  H.  Wadsworth,  of  Kentucky;  Benjamin  F.  Thomas, 
of  Massachusetts,  and  Edward  H.  Rollins,  of  New  Hampshire.  Sen- 
ator Surnner,  apt  as  he  was  to  be  ahead  of  his  party  on  all  questions 
affecting  slavery,  was  even  more  reluctant  than  Secretary  Chase  to 
consent  "  to  incur  all  the  unquestionable  evils  of  inconvertible  paper, 
forced  into  circulation  by  act  of  Congress,  to  suffer  the  stain  upon 
our  national  faith,  to  bear  the  stigma  of  a  seeming  repudiation,  to 
lose  for  the  present  that  credit  which  in  itself  is  a  treasury,  and  to 
teach  debtors  everywhere  that  contracts  may  be  varied  at  the  will 
of  the  stronger."  The  actual  condition,  however,  compelled  him  to 
consent,  "  reluctant!}',  painfully,"  but  he  declared  that  he  could  not 
"  give  such  a  vote  without  warning  the  Government  against  the  dan- 
ger of  such  an  experiment.  The  medicine  of  the  Constitution  must 
not  become  its  daily  bread."  The  vote  in  the  Senate  against  the  legal 
tender  feature  included  Anthony,  of  Rhode  Island;  Collamer  and 
Foot,  of  Vermont;  Fessenden,  of  Maine;  King,  of  New  York;  Cowan, 
of  Pennsylvania;  Foster,  of  Connecticut,  and  Willey,  of  Virginia.  On 
the  final  passage  three  Republicans — Collamer,  Cowan,  and  King— 
and  four  Democrats  voted  against  the  bill. 

The  United  States  legal  tender  notes,  popularly  called  the  "  green- 
backs," proved  unexpectedly  popular.  Besides  the  issue  of  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  millions  under  the  act  of  February  25,  1862,  two  other 
acts  authorizing  additional  issues  were  passed  July  11,  1862,  and 
March  3,  1863,  the  entire  amount  of  currency  thus  created  reaching 
four  hundred  and  fifty  millions.  Even  this  vast  amount  was  after- 
ward increased,  including  Treasury  notes  under  the  act  of  March  3, 
1863,  and  March  3  and  June  3,  1864.  The  legal  tenders,  outstanding 
June  30,  1864,  amounted  to  a  total  of  $600,431,119,  of  which  $780,990 
were  demand  notes;  $431,178,670  were  legal  tender  notes  proper,  $15,- 
000,000  were  three-years'  six  per  cent,  compound  (currency)  interest- 
bearing  notes;  $44,520,000  were  one-year  five  per  cent,  (currency) 
notes;  and  $108,951,450  were  two-years'  five  per  cent,  (currency)  notes. 
The  public  debt  was  $1,740,489  49. 


THE   PUBLIC   CREDIT.  263 

It  must  be  admitted  that  the  immense  issues  of  Treasury  and  legal 
tender  notes  increased  the  public  debt  more  rapidly  than  would  have 
been  the  case  had  it  been  possible  to  conduct  the  war  on  a  coin  basis, 
but  on  the  other  hand  these  extensive  issues  enabled  the  Government 
to  "  float "  its  bonds  successfully,  and  kept  the  aggregate  of  the  debt 
far  below  what  it  would  have  been  if  the  notes  of  the  banks  had  been 
used  instead  of  this  national  currency.  The  legal  tender  feature  was 
not  only  justified  by  political  and  military  necessity,  but  it  enabled 
the  American  people  to  pluck  the  flower,  safety,  from  the  nettle,  dan- 
ger. Without  it  the  Government  notes  wrould  have  been  no  better 
than  the  notes  of  the  suspended  banks.  Indeed,  without  it  the  banks 
would  have  rejected  and  discredited  the  "  greenbacks,"  the  large 
Democratic  element  hostile  to  the  war  would  have  combined  to  refuse 
them,  and  the  national  credit  would  have  been  utterly  and  hope- 
lessly ruined.  It  quickly  proved  not  only  a  measure  of  relief  for  the 
Government,  but  the  source  of  prosperity  for  the  country  in  the  midst 
of  war.  It  secured  prompt  and  ample  supplies  for  the  army  and  navy. 
It  invigorated  the  industries  of  the  people.  It  was  a  substitute  for 
money  that  at  the  time  performed  all  the  functions  of  money.  The 
depreciation  as  measured  with  gold  wras  gradual,  and  in  the  main 
salaries  and  wages  advanced  with  the  advance  in  prices.  The  pre- 
mium on  gold  became  only  a  name — a  symbol  for  speculators  who 
gambled  upon  the  fluctuations  of  the  gold  market.  The  state  of  the 
currency  was  not  really  measured  by  the  fluctuations  in  gold,  which 
rose  and  fell  without  any  apparently  adequate  cause.  Gold  rose  when 
there  was  no  increase  in  the  currency,  and  fell  when  it  was  increased 
by  large  additions.  The  price  of  gold  was  only  a  barometer  of  mili- 
tary success  or  failure  from  the  standpoint  of  the  gamblers  of  the 
Stock  Exchange  and  the  gold  room.  The  premium  in  New  York  in 
1862  rose  from  3  per  cent,  on  the  13th  of  January  to  4f  per  cent,  on 
the  13th  of  February;  then  it  fell  to  1$  per  cent,  on  the  13th  of  March. 
Afterward  there  was  a  rise,  but  on  the  13th  of  June  it  had  reached 
only  5£  per  cent.  On  the  15th  of  July  it  was  17;  on  the  15th  of  Octo- 
ber 32|,  and  on  the  31st  of  December  34.  During  the  year  1863  the 
fluctuations  were  greater  than  in  1862,  the  premium  rising  and  fall- 
ing with  the  wTar  bulletins.  On  the  25th  of  February  gold  had  ad- 
vanced to  72,  but  upon  the  receipt  of  favorable  news  from  the  South- 
west it  fell  to  40  on  the  26th  of  March.  On  the  2d  of  April  it  had  risen 
to  58,  but  a  favorable  report  of  an  attack  on  Fort  Sumter  brought  it 
down  to  461.  The  battle  of  Gettysburg  and  the  surrender  of  Vicks- 
burg  brought  gold  as  low  as  23^.  The  highest  premium  during  the 
rest  of  the  year  was  56f.  In  1864  the  premium  rose  from  52  on  the  2d 
of  January  to  88  on  the  14th  of  April.  It  fell  again  to  67  on  the  29th, 


264  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

but  on  the  22d  of  June  the  passage  of  the  Gold  bill  sent  it  up  to  130, 
to  be  followed  the  next  day  by  a  fall  of  15  points.  When  the  resigna- 
tion of  Secretary  Chase  was  announced  July  1, 1864,  gold  reached  185, 
but  the  next  day  it  dropped  to  130.  After  further  fluctuations  it  had 
fallen  to  87  on  the  10th  of  September.  It  would  be  idle  to  look  for  any 
adequate  cause  for  these  wide  divergences,  and  people  paid  no  atten- 
tion to  the  premiums  on  gold,  unless  a  stray  "  demand  note  "  came  to 
light  to  be  turned  into  "  greenbacks "  at  a  great  advance  on  its 
face  value.  The  constitutionality  of  the  legal  tender  issues  had  not 
yet  become  a  practical  question,  just  as  the  constitutionality  of  the 
income  tax  was  held  in  abeyance.  The  history  of  the  "  greenbacks  " 
shows  how  little  practical  value  the  principles  of  the  economists  have, 
for  they  made  the  prosecution  of  war  possible  and  saved  what  the 
prophets  of  finance  said  they  were  fated  to  destroy. 

The  creation  of  the  National  Banking  system,  although  it  was  al- 
most co-ordinate  with  the  extensive  issues  of  legal  tenders,  was 
neither  a  war  measure  nor  one  that  attained  great  political  impor- 
tance, either  during  the  War  Period  or  the  Period  of  reconstruction. 
The  National  banks  were  necessary  to  a  national  currency.  The  State 
banks,  although  no  longer  on  a  specie-paying  basis,  still  retained  and 
exercised  the  right  of  issuing  circulating  notes.  At  first  they  were 
hostile  to  any  change,  but  the  circulation  of  the  legal  tenders  soon 
brought  their  notes  into  disfavor  even  in  the  localities  where  they 
were  issued.  In  order  to  make  a  system  of  National  banks  possible 
it  was  necessary  to  tax  the  State  banks  out  of  existence.  It  is  un- 
necessary in  this  place  to  follow  the  steps  by  which  the  new  system 
was  established.  The  central  idea  of  the  system  was  to  establish  a 
uniform  circulation  of  equal  value  throughout  the  country  upon  the 
foundation  of  national  credit  combined  with  private  capital.  The 
banking  associations  were  required  to  invest  a  fixed  capital  in  United 
States  bonds,  and  privileged  to  receive  in  return  United  States 
notes,  to  be  employed  in  discounts  and  exchanges.  The  State  banks 
were  allowed  to  reorganize  under  the  act.  The  measure  was  under 
discussion  in  Congress,  and  before  the  country  previous  to  its  becom- 
ing a  law,  June  3,  1864,  for  a  longer  period  than  any  of  the  great 
financial  or  military  measures  of  war  times.  The  system  not  only 
proved  successful  in  freeing  the  country  from  the  objectionable  State 
banks,  but  it  was  of  great  service  to  the  Government  in  placing  the 
national  loans  and  funding  the  debt. 

It  was  not  until  1867  that  final  judicial  action  was  taken  on  the  con- 
stitutionality of  the  Legal  Tender  Act  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States.  The  decision  was  in  the  now  famous  case  of  Hepburn 
against  Griswold.  In  1860  Mrs.  Hepburn  made  a  promissory  note  by 


THE   PUBLIC   CREDIT.  265 

which  she  was  to  pay  to  Henry  Griswold,  February  20,  1862,  the  sum 
of  $11,250.  The  note  not  being  paid  at  maturity,  which  was  five  days 
before  the  Legal  Tender  Act  was  approved,  suit  was  brought  in  the 
Louisville  Chancery  Court,  where  Mrs.  Hepburn,  in  1864,  tendered 
•f  12,720  in  United  States  legal  tender  notes  in  payment  of  Griswold's 
claim,  principal  and  interest.  The  tender  was  not  accepted,  but  the 
case  was  decided  against  him.  This  action  was  reversed  by  the  Court 
of  Errors  of  Kentucky,  whereupon  Mrs.  Hepburn  appealed  to  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  The  case  was  argued  at  the  De- 
cember Term,  1867,  and  elaborately  reargued  at  the  December  Term, 
1868.  It  had  not  yet  been  decided  when  President  Grant  took  office, 
but  the  decision  was  announced  at  the  December  Term,  1869.  By  the 
decision  the  Legal  Tender  Act  was  declared  unconstitutional.  The 
opinion  was  read  by  Chief  Justice  Chase,  Justices  Harlan,  Clifford, 
Grier,  and  Field  concurring.  Justice  Miller  read  a  dissenting 
opinion  for  himself  and  Justices  Swayne  and  Davis.  This  was  re- 
garded as  a  Democratic  judgment,  none  of  the  Justices  who  swept 
away  the  law  that  had  contributed  so  much  to  the  perpetuity  of  the 
Republic  being  in  sympathy  with  the  Republican  party.  When  the 
majority  of  the  Court  was  Republican,  as  it  soon  became  by  the  ap- 
pointment of  Justices  Strong  and  Bradley,  the  Supreme  Court  re- 
versed the  decision  in  cases  that,  it  was  claimed,  were  governed  by 
the  judgment  in  Hepburn  against  Griswold.  There  was  a  great  out- 
cry against  this  action  by  Democrats,  who,  only  a  short  time  before, 
were  in  favor  of  paying  the  interest  on  the  national  debt  in  legal  ten- 
ders. Justice  Bradley,  especially,  was  subjected  to  the  most  virulent 
abuse.  The  controversy  was  an  unfortunate  one,  not  so  much  because 
the  question  was  decided  both  ways,  as  because  it  was  decided  at  all. 
Equity  required  that  Mrs.  Hepburn  should  pay  her  indebtedness  in 
coin,  and  the  interests  of  the  country  required  that  in  the  near  future 
there  should  be  a  return  to  coin  payments.  But  if  Griswold  had  been 
compelled  to  accept  "  greenbacks  "  his  case  would  not  have  been 
harder  than  that  of  thousands  of  men  who  went  into  debt  on  a  cur- 
rency basis  and  were  compelled  to  pay  on  a  gold  basis.  If  the  neces- 
sity to  resort  to  legal  tender  notes  should  present  itself  in  the  future 
to  save  the  life  of  the  nation,  these  conflicting  decisions  wrould  stand 
in  the  way  of  a  remedy  that  proved  vastly  beneficial  only  to  be  doubly 
dishonored. 

The  equities  involved  in  the  conflicting  decisions  of  the  Supreme 
Court  in  regard  to  the  constitutionality  of  the  Legal  Tender  Acts  was 
applicable  with  even  greater  force  to  the  payment  of  the  national 
debt  at  the  beginning  of  President  Grant's  administration.  The 
two  parties  were  diametrically  opposed  to  each  other  on  this  question 


266  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

when  the  President  sent  his  first  annual  message  to  Congress  in  De- 
cember, 1869.  The  Republicans  stood  on  the  firm  ground  that  pay- 
ment of  Government  obligations  should  be  in  coin,  unless  payment  in 
paper  money  had  been  previously  agreed  upon;  the  Democrats  in- 
sisted that  all  such  obligations  might  be  paid  in  paper,  unless  pay- 
ment in  coin  had  been  previously  agreed  upon.  In  his  message  the 
President  expressed  the  belief  "  that  immediate  resumption,  even  if 
practicable,  would  not  be  desirable,"  but  he  said  that  "  a  return  to  a 
specie  basis  should  be  commenced  immediately."  All  this  time  Hor- 
ace Greeley  was  asserting  his  famous  epigram  that  the  way  to  resume 
was  to  resume.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  resumption  was  not  a  question 
of  will,  but  of  ability.  Before  there  could  be  resumption  it  was  neces- 
sary that  the  national  debt  should  be  refunded  at  a  lower  rate  of  in- 
terest than  was  carried  on  the  face  of  the  various  issues  of  United 
States  bonds.  This  neither  of  Chase's  successors  at  the  head  of  the 
Treasury  had  been  able  to  accomplish.  Both  Mr.  Fessenden  and  Mr. 
McCulloch  were  more  concerned  with  raising  money  to  meet  pressing 
obligations  than  with  reducing  the  rates  of  interest  that  enabled 
them  to  find  takers  of  their  bonds.  Mr.  Fessenden  soon  withdrew 
from  a  position  for  which  his  temperament  scarcely  fitted  him.  Mr. 
McCulloch  had  been  in  office  only  a  short  time  when  President  Lin- 
coln was  assassinated.  Under  President  Johnson  he  was  weakened  by 
the  odium  that  attached  to  a  hated  Administration.  But  he  was  a 
careful,  methodical  man,  and  a  sound  financier.  As  early  as  the  au- 
tumn of  1865  he  was  looking  forward  to  the  time  when  the  irredeem- 
able paper  money  of  the  Government  might  be  made  convertible. 
"  The  present  inconvertible  currency  of  the  United  States,"  he  said  in 
a  speech  in  Indiana  at  that  time,  "  was  a  necessity  of  the  war;  but 
now  that  the  war  has  ceased,  and  the  Government  ought  not  to  be 
longer  a  borroAver,  this  currency  should  be  brought  up  to  the  specie 
standard,  and  I  see  no  way  of  doing  this  but  by  withdrawing  a  por- 
tion of  it  from  circulation."  He  secured  the  withdrawal  and  cancel- 
lation of  nearly  fifty  millions  of  legal  tender  notes  under  the  act  of 
1866,  but  in  the  main  Mr.  McCulloch's  energies,  apart  from  the  routine 
work  of  the  Department,  were  directed  toward  funding  the  immense 
temporary  obligations  of  the  Government.  His  administration  of 
the  Treasury  was  highly  creditable,  especially  when  his  environment 
is  considered,  and  he  turned  over  the  Department  to  his  successor, 
Mr.  Boutwell,  with  a  reputation  that  again  brought  him  back  to  it  in 
later  years,  under  an  administration  that  had  none  of  the  antago- 
nisms that  made  his  work  so  difficult  from  1865  to  1869.  The  appoint- 
ment of  George  S.  Boutwell  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  under  Presi- 
dent Grant  was  not  favorably  regarded  by  business  men.  He  was 


THE   PUBLIC   CREDIT.  267 

known  as  an  active  partisan  in  Congress,  and  was  supposed  to  be 
narrow  in  his  views  of  finance  and  limited  in  financial  knowledge. 
Grant's  choice  for  the  place  had  been  a  man  eminent  for  business  suc- 
cess— Alexander  T.  Stewart,  the  millionaire  merchant  of  New  York. 
As  an  importer  Stewart  was  ineligible  under  the  laws,  and  the  nomi- 
nation was  withdrawn  very  reluctantly  by  the  President  and  to  the 
great  disappointment  of  the  ambitious  merchant.  Grant,  accustomed 
to  military  methods,  wanted  Congress  to  make  Stewart  eligible  by 
joint  resolution,  but  Congress  declined  to  make  a  precedent  by  oblig- 
ing the  soldier  President.  Mr.  Boutwell  was  not  a  great  financier, 
but  neither  was  he  narrow  or  ignorant,  and  his  management  of  the 
Treasury  was  careful  and  creditable.  The  gradual  retirement  of  the 
legal  tenders,  the  reduction  of  taxation,  and  the  funding  of  the  na- 
tional debt  in  bonds,  with  interest  not  to  exceed  four  and  a  half  per 
cent.,  were  the  tasks  that  Secretary  Boutwell  set  for  himself.  Con- 
gress responded  with  the  necessary  legislation,  and  under  the  acts  of 
July  14, 1870,  and  January  20, 1871,  authority  was  given  for  the  issue 
of  1500,000,000  in  bonds  at  five  per  cent.,  payable  in  ten  years,  $300,- 
000,000  at  four  and  a  half  per  cent.,  payable  in  fifteen  years,  and 
11,000,000,000  at  four  per  cent.,  payable  in  thirty  years — all  to  be  pay- 
able in  coin  and  exempt  from  taxation,  and  to  be  issued  without  any 
increase  of  the  national  debt.  The  contemplated  funding  operations 
were  delayed  by  the  war  between  France  and  Germany,  and  in  1871, 
when  confidence  was  partly  restored,  it  was  found  possible  to  dispose 
of  the  five  per  cents  only. 

One  of  the  causes  that  impeded  funding  the  national  debt  in  low  in- 
terest-bearing bonds  at  that  time  was  the  existence  of  so  many  finan- 
cial vagaries  in  the  public  mind.  The  exemption  of  the  bonds  from 
taxation  and  their  payment  in  coin  had  been  so  stubbornly  resisted  in 
Congress  that  capitalists  held  aloof,  uncertain  of  the  future.  With 
gold  at  110  and  constant  exportations  of  bullion,  with  the  balance 
of  trade  against  us  and  production  almost  at  a  standstill,  with  the 
national  banks  weakened  by  prejudice  and  opposition;  with  the  cur- 
rency deranged  by  the  demand  for  the  increased  issue  of  fiat  money, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  destruction  of  the  legal  tender  quality  of 
the  greenbacks  on  the  other,  and  with  resumption  forced  so  far  into 
the  future  as  to  seem  only  a  dream,  it  was  not  only  impossible  that 
Mr.  Boutwell  should  succeed  in  funding  the  debt,  but  there  were  por- 
tents that  distrust  would  be  followed  by  disaster.  These  culminated 
in  the  panic  of  1873. 

The  monetary  panic  of  1873  was  the  beginning  of  reaction.  The 
crisis  was  due  to  some  extent  to  the  contraction  of  the  currency,  in 
consequence  of  the  retirement  of  legal  tenders,  and  the  rapid  payment 


268  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

of  the  public  debt.  Its  chief  causes,  however,  were  speculation  and 
overtrading,  and  the  losses  involved  in  the  transition  from  inflation 
toward  resumption  and  a  sound  currency.  The  financial  heresies 
of  the  Democratic  platform  of  1808,  and  the  greenback  craze,  that 
finally  resulted  in  the  organization  of  the  Greenback  party,  were  con- 
tributing causes.  Business  men — especially  in  the  West  and  South- 
west— believed  that  an  increased  circulation  of  notes  would  relieve 
the  depression  that  followed  the  monetary  crisis.  Even  President 
Grant  was  disposed  to  regard  renewed  inflation  as  a  remedy.  "  In 
view  of  the  great  actual  contraction  that  has  taken  place  in  the  cur- 
rency,-' he  said  in  his  annual  message  in  December,  1873,  "  and  the 
comparative  contraction  continuously  going  on,  due  to  the  increase 
of  manufactures  and  all  the  industries,  I  do  not  believe  there  is  too 
much  of  it  now  for  the  dullest  period  of  the  year.  Indeed,  if  clearing- 
houses should  be  established,  thus  forcing  redemption,  it  is  a  question 
for  your  consideration  whether  banking  should  not  be  made  free,  re- 
taining all  the  safeguards  now  required  to  secure  billholders."  Many 
of  the  Republican  Senators  and  Representatives  shared  in  the  views 
of  the  President,  and  the  Finance  Committee  of  the  Senate  reported 
a  bill  fixing  the  maximum  limit  of  United  States  notes  at  f  382,000,000. 
This  was  afterward  increased  to  |400,000,000,  which  was  $44,000,000 
above  the  amount  of  legal  tender  notes  then  in  circulation.  More  than 
this,  the  Senate  went  so  far  as  to  refuse  to  allow  a  clause  for  future 
reduction.  An  enlargement  of  the  circulation  of  the  National  banks 
was  made  at  the  same  time.  The  House  wras  not  in  entire  accord  with 
the  Senate,  but  the  differences  were  in  matters  of  detail  only,  and  the 
Senate  bill  was  agreed  to  by  both  Houses  without  any  radical  changes 
in  its  provisions.  In  the  mean  time,  however,  the  President  had  re- 
ceded from  his  own  recommendations,  and  he  vetoed  the  bill.  In  con- 
sequence of  the  veto  Congress  failed  to  pass  any  measure  of  relief. 
This  led  to  so  much  dissatisfaction  that  a  Democratic  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives was  chosen  in  1874,  for  the  first  time  since  1862.  The  de- 
feat was  a  warning  that  was  not  allowed  to  go  unheeded,  and  an  act 
to  provide  for  the  resumption  of  specie  payments  was  passed  before 
the  adjournment  of  the  43d  Congress.  The  Resumption  Act  of  1875 
was  the  basis  upon  which  the  return  to  specie  payments  was  finally 
achieved. 

"  Nearly  ten  years  had  elapsed  since  the  wrar  closed,"  says  Mr. 
Elaine  in  his  "  Twenty  Years  of  Congress,"  "  and  although  the  subject 
was  one  which  constantly  engaged  the  attention  of  financiers  and  to 
a  large  extent  enlisted  the  interest  of  the  public,  it  had  never  been 
framed  into  a  practical  legislative  measure.  It  had  now  been  accom- 
plished, as  might  well  be  said,  in  a  day.  The  pressure  upon  the  Repub- 


THE   PUBLIC   CREDIT.  269 

licans,  caused  by  the  Democratic  victory  of  the  preceding  autumn, 
was  very  great.  The  Democratic  Senators  and  Representatives, 
though  recording  themselves  unanimously  in  opposition  to  the 
measure,  were  not  willing  to  risk  its  defeat  by  the  parliamentary 
strategy  of  delay,  as  they  might  easily  have  done.  Their  party  leaders 
had  no  faith  in  the  measure,  but  they  knew  how  troublesome  was  the 
subject;  they  knew  that  it  had  proved  the  stumbling-block  in  the  Re- 
publican policy  for  years,  and  they  were  more  than  willing  that  it 
should  be  taken  out  of  the  way  on  the  eve  of  their  accession  to  the 
control  of  the  House  of  Representatives.  If  the  act  should  prove  to  be 
successful  their  hostility  to  it  might  be  forgotten,  and  they  could 
well  arraign  their  opponents  for  so  long  neglecting  to  enact  it.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  it  should  prove  unsuccessful,  it  would  remain  a 
standing  reproach  to  the  financial  policy  of  the  Republican  party. 
Benefits,  as  they  well  knew,  are  soon  forgotten,  while  injuries  are 
tenaciously  remembered;  and  this  they  believed  was  as  true  of  parties 
as  of  persons.  In  short,  as  the  leaders  of  the  Democracy  viewed  it, 
the  Resumption  Act,  passed  over  their  combined  vote,  could  do  them 
no  harm,  while  the  chances  were  that  it  would  inure  to  their  advan- 
tage." 

Closely  allied  with  the  Resumption  Act,  as  it  turned  out  when  the 
time  came  for  resumption,  January  1,  1879,  was  the  Coinage  Act  of 
1873.  This  was  the  measure  that  many  years  afterward  became  so 
conspicuous  in  party  politics  as  "  the  crime  of  1873."  The  act  omitted 
the  standard  silver  dollar  from  the  coinage  of  the  United  States.  The 
silver  coins  authorized  in  this  act  wrere:  the  "  trade  dollar,"  the  half- 
dollar,  quarter  dollar,  and  dime.  The  weight  of  the  "  trade  dollar  " 
was  fixed  at  420  grains  troy;  of  the  half-dollar  at  twelve  and  one-half 
grammes;  of  the  quarter  dollar  at  six  and  one-fourth  grammes,  and 
of  the  dime  at  one-fifth  of  the  half-dollar.  The  standard  for  both  gold 
and  silver  coins  was  not  changed,  except  that  the  allo3r  for  the  gold 
coin  might  be  wholly  of  copper,  or  have  one-tenth  part  of  it  silver. 
The  weight  of  the  gold  coins  was  fixed  at  510  grains  for  the  double 
eagle,  258  grains  for  the  eagle,  129  grains  for  the  half- 
eagle,  seventy-seven  and  four-tenths  for  the  three-dollar  piece, 
sixty-four  and  one-half  grains  for  the  quarter-eagle,  and 
twenty-five  and  eight-tenths  for  the  gold  dollar.  These  gold 
and  silver  coins,  and  none  other,  were  thereafter  to  be  issued;  and 
except  the  "  trade  dollar  "  and  silver  for  the  sum  of  five  dollars, 
gold  was  the  only  coinage  that  had  a  legal  tender  quality  affixed  to  it 
by  law,  under  this  act.  By  the  joint  resolution,  approved  July  22, 
1876,  the  legal  tender  quality  of  the  "trade  dollar"  was  abolished, 
and  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  was  authorized  to  limit  its  coinage 


270  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY 

"  to  such  an  amount  as  he  may  deem  sufficient  to  meet  the  export 
demand  for  the  same." 

With  resumption  the  question  arose  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  word 
"  coin  "  in  the  Resumption  Act  of  1875.  Did  it  mean  gold  and  silver, 
or  gold  only?  It  was  found  that  demonetization  had  been  accom- 
plished by  the  omission  of  the  standard  silver  dollar  from  the  coinage 
of  the  United  States.  The  omission  had  attracted  no  attention  and 
had  met  with  no  opposition.  When  the  legal  tender  quality  of  the 
"  trade  dollar  "  was  withdrawn  in  1876,  silver,  as  a  standard  of  value, 
disappeared  from  the  coinage.  After  that  remonetization  became  an 
issue,  as  will  be  found  in  the  subsequent  chapters  of  this  work. 


III. 

DIPLOMATIC  RELATIONS  OF  THE  UNITED   STATES. 

Unfriendliness  of  Europe  During  the  Civil  War — England's  Hostility 
—The  Trent  Affair — English  and  French  Neutrality — Mr.  Day- 
ton's Indignant  Protest — Recognition  of  the  Southern  Confed- 
eracy— Ocean  Belligerency — Failure  of  the  Johnson-Clarendon 
Treaty — President  Grant's  Recommendations — Hamilton  Fish — 
The  Joint  High  Commission — Treaty  of  Washington — Settlement 
of  Pending  Difficulties  with  Great  Britain — Purchase  of  Alaska 
—Opposition  to  the  Treaty  in  the  House — The  United  States  and 
Russia — Treaty  for  the  Annexation  of  San  Domingo — Mr.  Sum- 
ner's  Hostility  to  the  Treaty — Sumner  and  Grant — Reactionary 
Influences  of  the  Period. 

HE  diplomatic  relations  of  the  United  States  were  skillfully 
managed  by  Secretary  Seward  during  the  long  period  be- 
tween the  inauguration  of  President  Lincoln  and  the  retire- 
ment of  President  Johnson.  As  a  result  of  the  Civil  War 
many  delicate  and  dangerous  controversies  had  arisen  with  powers 
hostile  to  the  Union,  especially  Great  Britain  and  France.  Without 
provocation  of  any  kind  Lord  John  Russell  exhibited  an  unfriendly 
spirit  toward  the  incoming  Administration  even  before  Mr.  Lincoln 
took  office.  The  cause  of  his  haste  was,  no  doubt,  the  supposed  foreign 
policy  of  Mr.  Seward  for  averting  the  war.  There  is  no  other  possible 
explanation  of  Lord  John's  threats,  when  he  undertook  to  "  warn  a 
government  which  was  making  political  capital  out  of  blustering 
demonstrations,  that  our  patience  might  be  tried  too  far."  The  gov- 
ernment of  which  he  spoke  so  hotly  had  not  yet  an  existence.  This 
spirit  entered  into  all  the  diplomatic  relations  of  Great  Britain  and 
the  United  States  at  that  time.  So  eager  was  Her  Majesty's  Govern- 
ment for  a  dissolution  of  the  Union  that  it  did  not  wrait  for  the  arrival 
of  Charles  Francis  Adams,  the  new  American  Minister,  in  England 
before  issuing  a  proclamation  recognizing  the  belligerency  of  the 
confederated  Southern  States.  At  the  same  time  Lord  John  Russell 
concerted  measures  looking  to  virtual  intervention  with  France,  and 
actual  negotiations  were  conducted  with  the  Confederate  Government 
during  the  summer  of  1861.  France  recognized  the  Southern  Con- 
federacy with  a  like  precipitation,  and  in  all  these  transactions  acted 
as  an  ally  of  Great  Britain. 


272  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

No  opportunity  was  presented  for  Great  Britain  to  be  dangerously 
arrogant  and  aggressive  until  the  affair  of  the  "  Trent  "  occurred,  near 
the  close  of  1801.  On  the  9th  of  November,  Captain  Wilkes,  of  the 
United  States  steamer  "  San  Jacinto,"  seized  the  persons  of  James  M. 
Mason  and  John  Slidell,  Ministers  from  the  Southern  Confederacy  to 
Great  Britain  and  France,  respectively,  on  board  the  British  mail 
steamer  "  Trent,"  from  Havana  to  Kingston.  The  manner  of  the  de- 
mand for  the  surrender  of  these  rebel  commissioners  was  as  peremp- 
tory and  offensive  as  it  was  possible  to  make  it.  Mr.  Seward  made 
the  surrender  and  virtually  the  required  apology.  The  Secretary  of 
State  placed  the  surrender  on  the  ground  that  Captain  Wilkes  had 
not  brought  the  "  Trent  "  into  a  Prize  Court  and  submitted  the  whole 
question  to  a  judicial  examination.  It  was  afterward  contended, 
notably  by  Senator  Sumner,  that  we  could  not  have  refused  to  sur- 
render Mason  and  Slide!  1  without  trampling  on  our  own  principles 
and  in  disregard  of  the  precedents  we  had  sought  to  establish.  This 
was  a  sounder  legal  view  than  the  ground  taken  by  Mr.  Seward,  but  it 
was  the  manner  of  the  demand  rather  than  the  demand  itself  that 
sank  deep  into  the  hearts  of  the  American  people,  and  renewed  the 
old  feeling  of  hostility  to  England  that  nearly  forty  years  have  not 
been  able  entirely  to  eradicate.  America  never  has  forgotten  and 
never  can  forget  that  Great  Britain  was  preparing  to  go  to  war  writh 
us  not  to  right  a  wrong  done  to  her  sovereignty,  but  to  divide  the 
Union. 

The  neutrality  of  Great  Britain  and  Prance — the  malignant  neu- 
trality, as  it  has  been  fitly  called — left  many  questions  for  settlement 
after  the  war  that  wrere  necessarily  kept  in  abeyance  while  the  war 
lasted.  In  according  ocean  belligerency  to  the  Confederate  States 
these  great  powrers  were  guilty  of  a  crime  against  an  independent 
nation.  The  character  of  this  neutrality  was  vigorously  described  in 
the  indignant  protest  of  Minister  Dayton,  when  the  Confederate 
steamer  "  Georgia  "  received  a  hospitable  welcome  at  Brest.  "  The 
1  Georgia,'  "  Mr.  Dayton  said,  "  like  the  '  Florida,'  the  '  Alabama,'  and 
other  scourges  of  peaceful  commerce,  was  born  of  that  unhappy  de- 
cree which  gave  the  rebels,  who  did  not  own  a  ship-of-war  or  com- 
mand a  single  port,  the  right  of  an  ocean  belligerent.  Thus  encour- 
aged by  foreign  powers,  they  began  to  build  and  fit  out  in  neutral 
ports  a  class  of  vessels  constructed  mainly  for  speed,  and  whose  ac- 
knowledged mission  is  not  to  fight,  but  to  rob,  to  burn,  and  to  fly. 
Although  the  smoke  of  burning  ships  has  everywhere  marked  the 
track  of  the  '  Georgia  '  and  the  '  Florida  '  upon  the  ocean,  they  have 
never  sought  a  foe  or  fired  a  gun  against  an  armed  enemy.  To  dignify 
such  vessels  with  the  name  of  ships-of-war  seems  to  me,  with  defer- 


DIPLOMATIC   RELATIONS   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.  273 

euce,  a  misnomer.  Whatever  flag  may  fly  from  their  masthead,  or 
whatever  power  may  claim  to  own  them,  their  conduct  stamps  them 
as  piratical.  If  vessels  of  war,  even,  they  would  by  this  conduct  have 
justly  forfeited  all  courtesies  in  the  ports  of  neutral  nations.  Manned 
by  foreign  seamen,  armed  by  foreign  guns,  entering  no  home  port, 
and  waiting  no  judicial  condemnation  of  prizes,  they  have  already- 
devastated  and  destroyed  our  commerce  to  an  extent,  as  compared 
with  their  number,  beyond  anything  known  in  the  records  of  pri- 
vateering." 

When  the  question  of  recognizing  the  Southern  Confederacy  was 
before  Parliament,  William  E.  Gladstone,  who  was  forgiven  for  un- 
kindness  by  America  before  he  died,  wras  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer. He  opposed  recognition,  but  not  on  grounds  calculated  to 
endear  him  to  the  American  people.  He  told  the  House  that  "  the 
main  result  of  the  American  contest  is  not,  humanely  speaking,  in 
any  degree  doubtful."  He  thought  "  there  never  was  a  war  of  more 
destructive,  more  deplorable,  more  hopeless  character."  The  contest, 
in  his  judgment,  was  "  a  miserable  one."  "  We  do  not,"  said  he,  "  be- 
lieve that  the  restoration  of  the  American  Union  by  force  is  attain- 
able. I  believe  that  the  public  opinion  of  this  country  is  unanimous 
upon  that  subject.  It  is  not,  therefore,  from  indifference,  it  is  not 
from  any  belief  that  this  war  is  waged  for  any  adequate  or  worthy 
object  on  the  part  of  the  North,  that  I  would  venture  to  deprecate  in 
the  strongest  terms  the  adoption  of  the  motion  of  the  honorable  and 
learned  gentleman."  The  "  honorable  and  learned  gentleman  "  was 
Mr.  Roebuck,  who,  in  a  debate  in  the  House  of  Commons  in  1864,  de- 
clared that  "  the  whole  proceedings  in  this  American  war  are  a  blot 
upon  human  nature;  and  when  I  am  told  that  I  should  have  sym- 
pathy for  the  Northern  States  of  America,  I  turn  in  absolute  disgust 
from  their  hypocrisy.  If  there  is  a  sink  of  political  iniquity,  it  is  at 
Washington.  They  are  corrupt;  they  are  base;  they  are  cowardly; 
they  are  cruel." 

It  was  not  until  the  eve  of  President  Grant's  inauguration  that  the 
wrongs  resulting  from  the  unfriendly  course  of  Great  Britain  were 
put  in  train  for  settlement.  Mr.  Adams  had  proposed  a  friendly  arbi- 
tration of  the  Alabama  claims  to  Earl  Russell  under  instructions 
from  Secretary  Seward,  but  the  proposal  was  flatly  and  peremptorily 
declined  on  the  part  of  the  British  Government.  Later  Lord  Stanley, 
afterward  Earl  Derby,  who  succeeded  Earl  Russell  in  the  Foreign 
Office,  as  flatly  and  peremptorily  refused  a  second  proposal  of  like 
character.  When  Reverdy  Johnson  succeeded  Mr.  Adams  as  Minister 
to  England  in  1868,  a  third  and  more  successful  effort  was  made. 
Mr.  Gladstone  had  succeeded  Mr.  Disraeli  as  Prime  Minister,  and 
Lord  Clarendon  was  Foreign  Secretary  instead  of  Lord  Stanley.  With 


274  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

Lord  Clarendon  Mr.  Johnson  negotiated  a  treaty,  but  when  the  terms 
of  this  instrument  were  known  it  was  found  the  American  had  been 
completely  outwitted  by  the  Englishman.  Mr.  Johnson's  success  con- 
sisted wholly  in  negotiating  a  treaty,  such  as  it  was.  This  treaty  left 
the  great  injury  done  to  the  United  States  as  a  nation  by  Great 
Britain  during  the  war  entirely  out  of  the  case,  and  put  the  matter 
upon  the  basis  of  a  mere  claims  convention.  It  was  promptly  re- 
jected. "  The  truth  must  be  told  not  in  anger,  but  in  sadness,"  said 
Mr.  Sumner,  in  reporting  the  treaty  to  the  Senate.  "  England  has 
done  to  the  United  States  an  injury  most  difficult  to  measure.  Con- 
sidering when  it  was  done  and  in  what  complicity,  it  is  most  unac- 
countable. At  a  great  epoch  of  history,  not  less  momentous  than  that 
of  the  French  Revolution  or  that  of  the  Reformation,  when  civilization 
was  fighting  a  last  battle  wTith  slavery,  England  gave  her  influence, 
her  material  resources,  to  the  wicked  cause,  and  flung  a  sword  into 
the  scale  with  slavery." 

The  Johnson-Clarendon  treaty  was  rejected  a  few  weeks  after 
President  Grant  became  the  Chief  Executive.  The  rejection  left  our 
relations  with  Great  Britain  at  the  beginning  of  Grant's  administra- 
tion where  they  were  before.  In  his  first  annual  message,  in  Decem- 
ber, 1809,  the  President  spoke  of  the  failure  of  the  treaty  and  the 
reason  for  its  rejection.  The  message  committed  the  Government  of 
the  United  States  to  the  maintenance  of  a  claim  for  National  damages 
as  well  as  for  individual  losses.  Grant  had  the  great  virtue  of  pa- 
tience. He  patiently  waited,  a  year,  but  nothing  was  done.  It  was 
evident  that  nothing  would  be  done  unless  England  was  compelled 
to  act  by  a  pressure  that  could  not  easily  be  evaded.  The  President's 
second  annual  message  in  December,  1870,  applied  the  pressure.  The 
President  said  that  "  the  Cabinet  at  London  does  not  appear  willing 
to  concede  that  her  Majesty's  Government  was  guilty  of  any  negli- 
gence, or  did  or  permitted  any  act  of  which  the  United  States  has  just 
cause  of  complaint  ";  and  reasserted  that  "  our  firm  and  unalterable 
convictions,  are  directly  the  reverse."  In  view  of  all  this  he  asked  that 
Congress  should  "  authorize  the  appointment  of  a  commission  to  take 
proof  of  the  amounts  and  the  ownership  of  these  several  claims,  on 
notice  to  the  representative  of  her  Majesty  at  Washington,  and  that 
authority  be  given  for  the  settlement  of  these  claims  by  the  United 
States,  so  that  the  Government  shall  have  the  ownership  of  the  pri- 
vate claims  as  well  as  the  responsible  control  of  all  the  demands 
against  Great  Britain." 

It  was  evident  from  this  proposition  that  the  Administration  in- 
tended to  press  the  matter  as  a  grave  international  question.  It  in- 
dicated not  only  a  distinct  and  vigorous  diplomatic  policy,  but  a 


DIPLOMATIC   RELATIONS   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.  275 

policy  iii  accord  with  the  impulses  and  traditions  of  the  Republican 
party.  The  credit  of  it  has  always  been  attributed  jointly  to  the 
President  and  the  Secretary  of  State.  It  certainly  partook  of  the 
characteristics  of  both.  In  its  simplicity,  directness,  and  vigor  it 
reveals  the  soldier.  In  its  guarded  effectiveness  it  was  the  work  of  a 
trained  statesman.  From  that  time  until  the  end  was  reached 
through  the  Treaty  of  Washington  the  negotiations  were  guided  by 
the  skillful  hand  of  Hamilton  Fish. 

Mr.  Fish  was  not  in  President  Grant's  Cabinet  as  it  was  originally 
announced.  When  Grant  took  office  the  State  Department  was  given 
to  E.  B.  Washburne.  It  was  understood,  however,  that  Mr.  Wash- 
burne  would  soon  retire  to  accept  the  French  Mission.  This  arrange- 
ment was  carried  out,  and  Mr.  Fish  became  Secretary  of  State.  This 
selection  was  the  most  surprising  of  all  of  Grant's  appointments,  but 
it  turned  out  to  be  the  most  fortunate.  As  a 
young  man  Mr.  Fish  had  been  prominent  in 
New  York  politics.  After  serving  in  the  New 
York  Legislature,  he  was  a  member  of  Con- 
gress, 1843-5.  He  became  Governor  of  New 
York  in  1849,  and  a  Senator  in  Congress  in 
1851.  For  more  than  ten  years  he  had  taken 
no  active  part  in  politics.  Although  only  sixty 
j-ears  of  age,  the  politicians  thought  him  su- 
perannuated. But  he  brought  to  the  Depart- 
ment the  peculiar  gifts  that  were  needed  for 
its  successful  administration,  especially  at 
that  time.  He  was  a  man  of  high  character 
for  probity  and  honor,  of  fine  culture,  exten- 
sive acquirements,  and  distinguished  family.  It  was  soon  found  that 
he  had  kept  fully  abreast  with  the  times  in  the  knowledge  of  the  for- 
eign relations  of  the  United  States,  and  was  in  all  respects  the  equal  of 
any  of  his  predecessors  as  a  Foreign  Secretary.  His  great  wealth  and 
recognized  social  position  enabled  him,  aided  by  his  accomplished 
wife,  to  dispense  an  unostentatious  but  generous  and  elegant  hos- 
pitality, that  gave  character  to  his  diplomacy  and  the  Administra- 
tion. For  once  the  croakers  made  a  mistake  when  they  complained 
of  the  selection  of  Hamilton  Fish  for  the  first  place  in  Grant's 
Cabinet. 

President  Grant's  message  made  a  profound  impression  in  London. 
The  situation  in  Europe  was  such  that  the  course  he  proposed  became 
exceedingly  embarrassing  for  Great  Britain.  The  Franco-Prussian 
war  had  rendered  the  relations  of  the  Great  Powers  uncertain,  if  not 
threatening.  In  a  war  between  England  and  Russia  the  traditional 


276  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

friendship  between  the  great  empire  of  the  East  and  the  great  repub- 
lic of  the  West  would  count  for  much — a  neutrality  like  that  to  which 
Great  Britain  had  subjected  the  United  States  would  count  for  more. 
British  commerce  could  be  swept  from  the  seas  by  armed  vessels  that 
escaped  from  American  ports  after  the  manner  of  the  escape  of  the 
"  Alabama  "  and  other  Confederate  vessels  from  British  ports  during 
our  Civil  War.  Under  the  circumstances,  immediate  war  with  the 
United  States  would  have  been  preferable  to  the  American  policy 
that  meant  a  menace  for  Great  Britain  in  the  hour  of  danger.  It  was 
now  Great  Britain's  turn  to  become  eager  for  a  settlement,  because 
the  United  States  showed  their  purpose  to  gather  in  the  outstanding 
claims,  post  their  books,  and — wait! 

A  Washington  correspondent,  when  asked  who  created  the  Joint  High 
Commission  and  the  Geneva  Tribunal,  said:  u  Morton,  Rose  &  Co.  for 
Great  Britain,  and  Morton,  Bliss  &  Co.  for  the  United  States."  The 
initiative  was  taken  by  Sir  John  Rose,  the  London  partner  of  Levi  P. 
Morton,  the  New  York  banker,  afterward  Vice-President  of  the 
United  States.  The  result  of  Sir  John's  visit  to  Washington  was  a 
letter  from  Sir  Edward  Thornton,  the  British  Minister,  to  Secretary 
Fish,  January  26,  1871,  communicating  instructions  from  Lord  Gran- 
ville  in  regard  to  a  better  adjustment  of  the  fishery  question  and  all 
other  matters  affecting  the  relations  of  the  United  States  to  the 
British  North  American  possessions.  Sir  Edward  was  authorized 
by  his  Government  to  propose  the  creation  of  a  Joint  High  Commis- 
sion, the  members  to  be  named  by  each  Government,  wrhich  should 
meet  in  Washington,  and  discuss  the  question  of  the  fisheries  and  the 
relations  of  the  United  States  to  Her  Majesty's  possessions  in  North 
America. 

The  tone  of  his  answer  shows  that  the  proposal  was  not  a  surprise 
to  Mr.  Fish.  He  said  in  reply  that  "  in  the  opinion  of  the  President 
the  removal  of  differences  which  arose  during  the  rebellion  in  the 
United  States,  and  which  had  existed  since  then,  growing  out  of  the 
acts  committed  by  several  vessels,  which  have  given  rise  to  the  claims 
generally  known  as  the  Alabama  Claims,  will  also  be  essential  to 
the  restoration  of  cordial  and  amicable  relations  between  the  two 
Governments." 

The  Treaty  of  Washington  was  remarkable  for  the  celerity  with 
which  it  was  negotiated.  Sir  Edward  Thornton  only  waited  long 
enough  to  hear  from  Lord  Granville  by  cable  before  sending  his  an- 
swer to  Secretary  Fish.  Within  two  months  after  President  Grant's 
message  went  to  Congress  the  preliminary  steps  wTere  taken,  and  the 
Joint  High  Commission  appointed.  The  Commissioners  on  behalf  of 
Great  Britain  were  the  Earl  de  Grey  and  Ripon,  president  of  the 


DIPLOMATIC   RELATIONS   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.  277 

Queen's  Council;  Sir  Stafford  Northcote,  late  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer; Sir  Edward  Thornton,  British  Minister  at  Washington;  Sir 
John  Maedouald,  Premier  of  the  Dominion  of  Canada,  and  Montague 
Bernard,  professor  of  international  law  in  the  University  of  Oxford. 
On  the  part  of  the  United  States  they  were  Hamilton  Fish,  Secre- 
tary of  State;  Kobert  C.  Schenck,  who  had  just  been  appointed  Min- 
ister to  Great  Britain;  Samuel  Nelson,  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court; 
E.  Kockwood  Hoar,  late  Attorney-General,  and  George  H.  Williams, 
late  Senator  of  the  United  States  from  Oregon.  The  secretaries  were 
Lord  Tenterden,  Under-Secretary  of  the  British  Foreign  Office,  and 
J.  C.  Bancroft  Davis,  Assistant  Secretary  of  State  of  the  United 
States. 

The  British  Commissioners  arrived  in  Washington  before  the  close 
of  February,  1871,  and  the  Treaty  was  concluded  on  the  8th  day  of 
May.  This  was  something  unprecedented  in  British  diplomacy.  The 
treaty  took  cognizance  of  four  questions  at  issue  between  the  two 
countries,  and  it  was  agreed  that  the  Alabama  Claims  should  be  ad- 
justed at  Geneva,  Switzerland,  by  arbitration;  that  all  other  claims 
for  damages  sustained  by  citizens  of  the  United  States  and  subjects 
of  Great  Britain,  between  1801  and  1865,  should  be  determined  by  a 
commission  to  meet  at  Washington;  that  the  San  Juan  dispute  should 
be  referred  to  the  Emperor  of  Germany  as  umpire,  and  that  the  ques- 
tion in  regard  to  the  fisheries  should  be  settled  by  a  commission  to 
meet  at  Halifax,  Nova  Scotia.  The  Geneva  award  was  for  |15,500,000, 
an  amount,  as  it  was  afterward  ascertained,  that  was  in  excess  of  the 
actual  damages  sustained  by  citizens  of  the  United  States  in  conse- 
quence of  the  depredations  of  the  rebel  cruiser.  All  the  other  ques- 
tions in  dispute  were  settled  to  the  satisfaction  of  both  countries.  But 
the  greatest  triumph  of  Mr.  Fish's  diplomacy,  and  the  one  that  gives 
him  a  high  place  as  a  statesman,  was  the  agreement  upon  the  three 
rules  of  international  lawT  by  which,  as  neutrals,  the  two  countries 
were  to  be  bound  in  time  of  war.  These  rules  were: 

"  First,  to  use  due  diligence  to  prevent  the  fitting  out,  arming,  or  equipping,  within  its 
jurisdiction,  of  any  vessel  which  it  has  reasonable  ground  to  believe  is  intended  to  cruise  or 
to  carry  on  war  against  a  power  with  which  it  is  at  peace  ;  and  also  to  use  like  diligence  to 
prevent  the  departure  from  its  jurisdiction  of  any  vessel  intended  to  cruise  or  carry  on  war  as 
above,  such  vessel  having  been  specially  adapted,  in  whole  or  in  part,  within  such  jurisdiction, 
to  warlike  use. 

"  Secondly,  not  to  permit  or  suffer  either  belligerant  to  make  use  of  its  ports  or 
waters  as  the  base  of  naval  operations  against  the  other,  or  for  the  purpose  of  the  renewal  or 
augmentation  of  military  supplies  or  arms,  or  the  recruitment  of  men. 

"  Thirdly,  to  exercise  due  diligence  in  its  own  ports  and  waters,  and,  as  to  all  persons 
within  its  jurisdiction,  to  prevent  any  violation  of  the  foregoing  obligations  and  duties." 

While  Mr.  Fish's  diplomacy  was  more  successful  in  dealing  with 
Great  Britain  than  the  effort  of  Mr.  Seward,  the  purchase  of  Alaska 


278  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

by  President  Johnson's  Administration  succeeded,  but  President 
Grant's  negotiations  for  the  acquisition  of  San  Domingo  failed.  The 
purchase  of  Alaska  from  Russia  was  effected  by  the  treaty  of  March 
30,  1867,  and  completed  by  the  appropriation  of  the  purchase  money, 
$7,200,000  in  gold,  July  27,  1868.  If  it  had  not  been  for  the  tradi- 
tional friendship  of  Kussia  for  the  United  States  this  purchase  would 
have  failed,  even  after  it  wras  made.  The  American  people  had  no 
appreciation  of  the  real  value  of  the  territory  ceded — to  them  it  was 
only  a  "  lump  of  ice," — and  the  popular  branch  of  Congress  was  no 
better  informed.  In  the  Senate  the  opposition  was  not  so  marked, 
and  the  treaty  wras  ratified  with  comparatively  little  difficulty.  In 
the  House  many  leading  Republicans  opposed  the  appropriation.  C. 
C.  Washburu,  of  Wisconsin,  took  the  lead  in  opposition.  He  said  of 
the  treaty  that  nobody  asked  for  it;  that  it  was  secretly  negotiated 
so  that  the  opposition  to  it  could  not  be  heard;  that  we  were  to  be  put 
to  never-ending  expense  in  governing  a  nation  of  savages,  and  that 
the  country  was  absolutely  without  value.  General  Butler  thought 
that  if  we  were  to  pay  for  the  friendship  of  Russia  it  would  be  cheaper 
to  give  the  Czar  the  cash  and  let  him  keep  Alaska.  The  men  who 
knew  the  least  about  the  Territory  were  the  most  pronounced  in  de- 
claring it  to  be  entirely  worthless.  Mr.  Peters,  of  Maine,  said  it  was 
"intrinsically  valueless";  Mr.  Price,  of  Iowa,  Mr.  Shellabarger,  of 
Ohio,  and  Mr.  McCarthy,  of  NewT  York,  were  among  those  who 
argued  against  the  purchase.  In  its  favor  were  Mr.  Stevens 
and  Mr.  L.  Myers,  of  Pennsylvania;  Mr.  Spalding,  of  Ohio, 
and  Mr.  Higby,  of  California.  The  principal  champion  of  the 
measure  in  the  House  was  General  Banks,  chairman  of  the  Committee 
on  Foreign  Affairs.  His  speech  was  very  able,  and  in  regard  to  the 
friendship  of  Russia  for  the  United  States  exceedingly  interesting. 
"  In  the  darkest  hour  of  our  peril  during  the  rebellion,"  he  said, 
"  when  we  were  enacting  a  history  which  no  man  yet  thoroughly 
comprehends,  when  France  and  England  were  contemplating  the 
recognition  of  the  Confederacy,  the  whole  world  was  thrilled  by  the 
appearance  in  San  Francisco  of  a  fleet  of  Russian  war  vessels,  and 
nearly  at  the  same  time,  whether  by  accident  or  design,  a  second  Rus- 
sian fleet  appeared  in  the  harbor  of  New  York.  Who  knew  how  many 
more  there  wrere  on  their  voyage  here?  From  that  hour  France,  on 
one  hand,  and  England,  on  the  other,  receded,  and  the  American 
Government  regained  its  position  and  its  power.  .  .  .  Now,  shall 
we  flout  the  Russian  Government  in  every  court  in  Europe  for  her 
friendship?  Whoever  of  the  Representatives  of  the  American  people 
in  this  House,  on  this  question,  turns  his  back,  not  only  upon  his  duty, 
but  upon  the  friends  of  his  country,  upon  the  Constitution  of  his 


DIPLOMATIC   RELATIONS   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.  279 

Government,  and  the  honor  of  his  generation,  can  not  long  remain  in 
power." 

An  effort  was  made  by  the  House  to  share  in  the  treaty-making 
power  of  the  Senate,  but  a  compromise  was  effected  in  conference, 
and  the  necessary  appropriation  was  made.  Mr.  Seward  was  less  for- 
tunate in  his  attempted  purchase  of  the  Danish  Island  of  St.  Thomas, 
in  the  West  Indies,  but  President  Grant's  effort  to  acquire  San  Do- 
mingo, in  1870,  met  with  even  more  marked  disfavor.  The  reasons 
for  the  acquisition  of  the  Dominican  Republic  were  very  strong,  but 
they  were  not  understood  by  Congress  or  the  country.  The  circum- 
stances attending  the  negotiations  were  not  fortunate.  The  agent 
sent  to  San  Domingo  by  the  President  was  General  O.  E.  Babcock, 
who  had  been  a  member  of  General  Grant's  staff  during  the  war.  It 
did  not  appear  that  he  had  been  authorized  by  the  State  Department 
to  negotiate  a  treaty,  but  he  came  back  with  not  only  a  convention 
for  the  lease  of  the  bay  and  peninsula  of  Samana,  but  with  a  treaty  of 
annexation.  When  the  treaty  was  sent  to  the  Senate  it  was  soon 
developed  that  some  of  the  leading  Senators  were  not  only  opposed 
to  the  scheme,  but  ready  to  antagonize  the  President.  This  was 
especially  the  case  with  Senator  Sumner,  who  was  offended  because, 
as  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations,  he  had  not  been 
consulted  in  the  negotiations.  He  opposed  its  ratification  with  great 
bitterness,  in  a  speech  unworthy  of  the  orator,  and  needlessly  hostile 
to  the  President.  In  his  arraignment  of  the  Administration  he  went 
out  of  his  way  to  beseech  the  Vice-President  "  as  a  friend  of  General 
Grant  to  counsel  him  not  to  follow  the  examples  of  Franklin  Pierce, 
of  James  Buchanan,  and  of  Andrew  Johnson." 

"  The  negotiation  for  annexation,"  Sumner  said,  u  began  with  a 
political  jockey  named  Buenaventura  Baez;  and  he  had  about  him 
two  other  political  jockeys,  Casneau  and  Fabens.  These  three  to- 
gether, a  precious  co-partnership,  seduced  into  their  firm  a  young- 
officer  of  ours,  who  entitles  himself  aide-de-camp  to  the  President  of 
the  United  States.  Together  they  got  up  what  was  entitled  a  pro- 
tocol, in  which  the  young  officer,  entitling  himself  aide-de-camp  to 
the  President,  proceeded  to  make  certain  promises  for  the  President. 
I  desire  to  say  that  there  is  not  one  word  showing  that  at  the  time 
this  aide-de-camp,  as  he  called  himself,  had  any  title  or  instruction 
to  take  this  step.  If  he  has,  that  title  and  that  instruction  have  been 
withheld.  No  inquiry  had  been  able  to  penetrate  it.  ...  I  ask 
you  "  (addressing  the  Vice-President),  "  do  you  know  any  such  officer 
in  our  Government  as  *  aide-de-camp  '  to  His  Excellency  the  President 
of  the  United  States?  Does  his  name  appear  in  the  Constitution,  in 
any  statute,  in  the  history  of  this  country  anywhere?  If  it  does,  then 


280  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

your  information  is  much  beyond  mine.  .  .  .  However,  he  as- 
sumed his  title,  and  it  doubtless  produced  a  great  effect  with  Baez, 
Casneau,  and  Fabens,  the  three  confederates.  They  were  doubtless 
pleased  with  the  distinction.  It  helped  on  the  plan  they  were  en- 
gineering. The  young  aide-de-camp  pledged  the  President  as  follows: 
'  His  Excellency,  General  Grant,  President  of  the  United  States, 
promises  privately  to  use  all  his  influence  in  order  that  the  idea  of 
annexing  the  Dominican  Republic  to  the  United  States  may  acquire 
such  a  degree  of  popularity  among  members  of  Congress  as  will  be 
necessary  for  its  accomplishment.'  Shall  I  read  the  rest  of  the  docu- 
ment? It  is  somewhat  of  the  same  tenor.  There  are  questions  of 
money  in  it,  cash  down,  all  of  which  must  have  been  particularly 
agreeable  to  the  three  confederates." 

The  speech  led  to  a  complete  break  in  the  personal  relations  of 
these  two  great  men,  and  it  was  not  long  until  Sumner  was  as  vigor- 
ously opposing  Grant's  Administration  as  he  had  opposed  the  policy 
of  Andrew  Johnson.  As  a  result  of  the  quarrel  Sumner  was  dropped 
from  the  chairmanship  of  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations,  and 
General  Cameron  was  given  the  place.  Sumner's  friends  charged  this 
indignity,  as  they  chose  to  regard  it,  to  Grant,  but  as  the  Senator  was 
no  longer  in  sympathy  with  the  majority  in  the  Senate,  or  with  the 
Republican  party,  he  had  no  just  cause  for  complaint.  Forbearance 
with  Sumner  would  have  been  a  heroic  virtue,  for  it  was  one  in  which 
he  never  indulged  himself  toward  others.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Sum- 
ner never  was  a  Republican  in  the  party  sense,  and  his  deposition 
was  not  a  wrong  on  the  part  of  the  Republican  majority  in  the  Senate 
to  a  party  associate.  It  was  not  true,  as  Mr.  Elaine  afterward  as- 
serted, that  the  action  of  the  Senate  was  in  effect  notice  to  the  whole 
world  that  Mr.  Sumner  was  to  have  no  further  connection  with  a 
great  international  question,  the  relations  of  Britain  and  the  United 
States,  to  which  he  had  given  more  attention  than  any  other  person 
connected  with  the  Government.  Mr.  Edmunds  was  nearer  the  true 
ground  when  he  declared  that  the  question  was  "  whether  the  Senate 
of  the  United  States  and  the  Republican  party  are  quite  ready  to 
sacrifice  their  sense  of  duty  to  the  whims  of  one  single  man,  whether 
he  comes  from  New  England,  or  from  Missouri,  or  from  Illinois,  or 
from  anywhere  else."  Mr.  Sumner,  on  his  part,  was  not  so  magnani- 
mous toward  Mr.  Blaine,  for  when  Blaine  charged  him  at  a  later 
period  with  being  recreant  to  the  party,  he  retorted  that  "  with  so 
many  others  devoted  to  the  cause  I  have  always  served  I  had  not 
missed  you  until  you  reported  your  absence." 

The  San  Domingo  treaty  was  beaten  in  the  Senate  by  a  tie  vote — 28 
to  28 — but  President  Grant,  with  characteristic  tenacity,  clung  to  a 


DIPLOMATIC   RELATIONS   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES.  281 

hope  of  its  final  success.  He  discussed  the  question  in  his  annual  mes- 
sage in  December,  1870,  and  asked  that  "  by  joint  resolution  of  the  two 
Houses  of  Congress,  the  Executive  be  authorized  to  appoint  a  com- 
mission to  negotiate  a  treaty  with  the  authorities  of  San  Domingo 
for  the  acquisition  of  that  island,  and  that  an  appropriation  be  made 
to  defray  the  expenses  of  such  commission."  All  that  he  could  obtain 
was  the  appointment  of  commissioners  to  proceed  to  San  Domingo 
to  make  inquiries  into  the  political  condition  of  the  island  and  its 
agricultural  and  commercial  value.  The  Commissioners  were  Ben- 
jamin F.  Wade,  of  Ohio;  Andrew  D.  White,  of  New  York,  and  Samuel 
O.  Howe,  of  Massachusetts,  all  men  of  high  character.  They  reported 
in  favor  of  the  policy  recommended  by  the  President,  but  without  re- 
sult. President  Grant  regarded  the  report  as  a  vindication  of  the 
attempt  to  secure  the  annexation  of  the  Dominican  Republic,  and  he 
never  ceased  to  regret  the  failure  of  the  scheme.  Twenty-eight  years 
later  the  war  with  Spain  demonstrated  the  wisdom  of  his  policy. 

"  If  Simmer's  conduct  in  the  San  Domingo  business  failed  to  please 
the  Administration,"  wrote  one  of  the  biographers  of  the  Massachu- 
setts Senator,  "  it  did  not  fail  to  please  the  Republic  of  Hayti,  who, 
grateful  to  the  defender  of  her  independence,  presented  him  with  a 
gold  medal  in  token  of  her  sense  of  the  generous  service  rendered  to 
her  as  a  black  nation." 

The  medal,  now  deposited  in  the  Massachusetts  State  Library,  is 
not  a  token  of  any  real  service  to  the  Republic  of  Hayti,  the  inde- 
pendence of  which  was  not  threatened,  but  of  the  conflict  between 
the  ideas  of  the  man  of  action  and  the  inaction  of  the  man  of  ideas. 
Events  have  shown  that  the  foresight  of  the  soldier  was  truer  than 
the  wisdom  of  the  statesman.  San  Domingo  would  have  been  bene- 
fited directly,  and  Hayti  indirectly,  by  annexation  in  1870.  The  United 
States  would  not  only  have  gained  great  material  advantages  from 
the  development  of  San  Domingo,  but  we  would  have  had  a  base  of 
inestimable  value  in  the  operations  against  Spain  in  1898.  Grant's 
policy  not  only  exhibited  the  foresight  of  the  soldier,  but  the  wisdom 
of  the  statesman.  We  can  now  see  that  the  President's  words  in  his 
last  annual  message  have  been  justified  by  events.  "  If  my  views  had 
been  concurred  in,"  he  said,  "  the  country  would  be  in  a  more  pros- 
perous condition  to-day  both  politically  and  financially.  ...  I 
do  not  present  these  views  now  as  a  recommendation  for  a  renewal 
of  the  subject  of  annexation,  but  I  do  refer  to  it  to  vindicate  my 
previous  action  in  regard  to  it." 

It  was  an  unfortunate  circumstance  in  connection  with  the  San 
Domingo  annexation  scheme  that  General  Babcock,  by  whom  the 
treaty  was  negotiated,  was  afterward  compromised  by  the  friends  of 


282  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

the  notorious  "  Whisky  King."  Mr.  Suinner  had  created  the  im- 
pression that  there  was  a  job  in  the  treaty  in  which  Babcock  was 
interested.  The  smirching  that  Babcock's  reputation  received  in 
1875  seemed  to  confirm  Suniner's  allegation,  and  thus  the  President 
was  made  to  share  in  the  suspicions  that  attached  to  the  original 
negotiations.  These  circumstances  were  at  the  bottom  of  the  Presi- 
dent's justification  of  himself  in  his  last  message  to  Congress. 

While  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  diplomacy  of  Grant's  admin- 
istration failed  through  the  opposition  of  Republicans  in  the  Senate, 
except  in  the  settlement  of  our  long  pending  differences  with  Great 
Britain,  the  failure  leaves  no  reproach  for  the  soldier  President.  It 
was  due  to  the  narrowness  of  a  few  men  who  were  hostile  to  Grant, 
as  they  had  been  hostile  to  Lincoln,  and  to  the  readiness  with  which 
the  country  forgot  the  isolation  and  dangers  of  the  Civil  War.  We 
forgot  that  the  malignant  neutrality  of  England  and  France  while  the 
war  lasted  meant  enmity  to  the  Union.  We  forgot  that  by  the  aid  and 
intervention  of  France  a  neighboring  Republic  had  been  subverted 
and  an  empire  established  on  our  Southern  borders.  We  forgot  that 
all  the  States  of  Europe,  with  the  exception  of  Russia,  were  unfriendly 
to  us  in  the  hour  of  trial,  and  at  heart  were  unfriendly  to  us  still. 
We  allo\ved  ourselves  to  become  so  absorbed  in  the  work  of  restora- 
tion that  we  neglected  safety  in  the  future  because  it  involved  the 
fanciful  dangers  of  extension.  We  cried  out  against  the  alleged  per- 
sonalism  and  one-man  power  of  Grant's  administration,  and  built  a 
sea-wall  of  prejudice  against  our  destiny  as  a  nation.  All  this  was 
inevitable,  perhaps.  Reaction  was  the  natural  consequence  of 
reconstruction  and  restoration.  The  reaction  set  in  early  in  Grant's 
first  term,  and  we  shall  find  it  the  most  potent  force  in  opposition  to 
his  re-election.  This  reactionary  spirit  was  most  seriously  felt  in 
retarding  the  progress  and  prosperity  of  the  South,  but  its  aims  and 
purposes  were  most  clearly  exhibited  in  the  Liberal  Republican  move- 
ment of  1872. 


IV. 

THE  SOUTH — FIRST  DECADE  AFTER  THE  WAR. 

Georgia  Repudiates  the  Fifteenth  Amendment — Consequent  Action 
of  Congress — Outrages  in  the  South — Origin   of  the   Ku-Klux 


Klau — Mr.  Cox  on  the  Ku-Klux — Strength  of  the  Organization— 
Ku-Klux  Outrages  in  North  Carolina — Condition  of  South  Caro- 
lina— Disorders  in  Georgia  and  Alabama — Outrages  in  Missis- 
sippi— Condition  of  the  South  in  1874 — The  Carpet-baggers- 
Judge  Black  on  Carpet-bag  Government — His  Impeachment  De- 
nied— Responsibility  of  the  Democratic  Party — Legislation  of 
Congress — General  Amnesty  and  Civil  Rights — A  Democratic 
Recognition  of  Organized  Intimidation  and  Terrorism. 


[HE  South  accepted  all  the  amendments,  including  the  Fif- 
teenth, and  then  treated  them  as  without  force  or  effect. 
Georgia  was  the  first  State  to  show  open  defiance  of  the 
measures  of  Reconstruction.  While  her  Senators  and  Rep- 
resentatives were  waiting  for  formal  leave  to  take  their  seats  in  the 
41st  Congress,  the  Legislature  which  had  complied  with  the  condi- 
tions that  rendered  their  return  possible,  decided  that  colored  men 
were  not  entitled  to  serve  as  legislators,  or  to  hold  office  in  that  State. 
The  blacks  were  accordingly  expelled  from  the  Legislature,  while 
white  men  who  were  ineligible  under  the  Fourteenth  Amendment 
were  allowed  to  remain.  The  Fifteenth  Amendment  was  then  re- 
jected. Congress  passed  an  act  declaring  the  Legislature  thus  consti- 
tuted illegal,  and,  in  order  to  make  the  measure  effective,  Georgia 
was  required  to  ratify  the  Fifteenth  Amendment  to  the  Constitution 
before  the  Senators  and  Representatives  wrould  be  admitted  to  Con- 
gress. To  meet  these  requirements,  the  Legislature,  as  originally 
constituted,  was  reassembled,  and  the  amendment  was  finally  rati- 
fied, February  2, 1870. 

Although  reconstruction  was  complete,  restoration  was  still  far  in 
the  future.  Everywhere  in  the  South  the  right  of  the  negro  to  vote 
was  resisted  and  denied.  So  bitter  was  the  hostility  to  impartial  suf- 
frage that  a  number  of  organizations  was  formed  for  the  purpose  of 
depriving  the  negro  of  the  rights  conferred  on  him  by  the  Constitu- 
tion and  lawrs  of  the  States  and  the  United  States.  The  most  note- 
worthy of  these  was  known  as  the  Ku-Klux-Klan.  It  was  made  up 
in  part  of  returned  Confederate  soldiers,  and  in  part  of  very  young 


284  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

men,  who  had  reached  early  manhood  after  the  war.  These  young 
desperadoes  were  armed  as  freebooters.  They  rode  by  night  and  wrore 
disguises.  Negroes  and  white  Republicans  were  their  victims.  The 
laws  were  openly  and  even  ostentatiously  defied.  They  hesitated  at 
no  cruelty — were  deterred  by  no  considerations  of  humanity.  Ter- 
rorism became  the  general  condition  throughout  the  South.  The 
outrages  included  nearly  every  crime  in  the  criminal  code,  from  the 
mere  beating  of  black  men  to  arson  and  murder.  Wholesale  mas- 
sacres were  not  uncommon.  Arrest  and  punishment  for  these  wrongs 
were  rendered  difficult  and  almost  impossible.  White  men  who  had 
no  share  in  the  outrages  wrere  prevented  by  fear  from  giving  incul- 
pating testimony.  Willing  witnesses  were  subjected  to  torture,  and 
in  many  cases  doomed  to  death.  Unwilling  witnesses  were  beaten 
and  their  houses  burned  over  their  heads.  "  Murder  with  them  was 
an  occupation  and  perjury  a  pastime,"  said  a  member  of  the  klan. 

The  Ku-Klux  Klan  originated  as  early  as  1866.  It  began  in  the 
vicious  frivolities  of  some  young  Tennesseeans,  and  in  the  end  became 
the  engine  of  a  series  of  outrages  that  have  scarcely  a  parallel  in 
history.  It  has  been  claimed  that  the  organization  at  first  had  no 
political  purpose — that  it  was  instituted  merely  to  scare  the  super- 
stitious blacks.  The  original  Ku-Klux  went  "  mumicking  about," 
telling  horrid  tales  to  frighten  the  negroes.  They  visited  the  houses 
of  the  colored  people,  threatening  and  maltreating  them,  and  relat- 
ing preposterous  stories.  One  Ku-Klux  said  he.  had  been  killed  at 
Manassas,  "  and  since  then  some  one  has  built  a  turnpike  over  his 
grave,  and  he  has  to  scratch  like  h — 1  to  get  up  through  the  gravel." 
Some  of  them  carried  a  flesh  bag  in  the  shape  of  a  heart,  and  went 
"  hollering  for  fried  nigger  meat."  One  carried  an  India  rubber 
stomach  to  frighten  negroes  by  swallowing  pailsful  of  water.  Even 
Democratic  writers  with  prejudices  in  favor  of  the  truth  have  been 
compelled  to  admit  the  political  objects  of  these  secret,  oath-bound 
organizations.  "  Certain  it  is,"  wrote  S.  S.  Cox,  in  his  "  Three  Decades 
of  Federal  Legislation,"  in  1885,  "  that  they  soon  came  to  be  made  use 
of,  in  the  most  arbitrary,  cruel,  and  shocking  manner,  for  the  further- 
ance of  political  ends,  and  for  the  crushing  out  of  Republicanism  in 
the  Southern  States,  to  which  party  the  colored  people  were  almost 
unanimously  attached.  The  crimes  and  outrages  narrated  in  these 
pages  had  their  origin,  almost  exclusively,  in  political  causes — in 
the  effort  on  the  part  of  the  whites  to  set  at  naught  the  rights  of 
suffrage  guaranteed  to  the  negroes,  and  to  exclude  from  Federal, 
State,  county,  and  local  offices  all  persons  whose  reliance  for  election 
to  such  offices  was  mainly,  if  not  altogether,  on  negro  votes. 
The  members  were  sworn  to  secrecy,  under  the  penalty  of  death  for 


THE  SOUTH— FIRST  DECADE  AFTER  THE  WAR.  285 

breach  of  fidelity.  Their  ordinary  mode  of  operation — as  gathered 
from  the  mass  of  evidence — was  to  patrol  the  country  at  night.  They 
went  well  armed  and  mounted.  They  wore  long  white  gowrns.  They 
masked  their  faces.  Their  appearance  terrified  the  timid  and  super- 
stitious negroes  who  happened  to  see  them  as  they  rode  past,  and 
who  then  regarded  them  as  ghostly  riders.  But  most  frequently  they 
surrounded  and  broke  into  the  cabins  of  the  negroes;  frightened  and 
maltreated  the  inmates;  warned  them  of  future  vengeance;  and  prob- 
ably carried  off  some  obnoxious  negro  or  '  carpet-bagger/  whose 
fate  it  was  to  be  riddled  with  murderous  bullets,  hung  to  the  limb  of  a 
tree,  or  mercilessly  whipped  and  tortured,  for  some  offense,  real  or 
imaginary,  but  generally  because  he  was  active  in  politics  or  in  negro 
schools  or  churches." 

Among  those  who  belonged  to  one  of  the  secret  societies  that  went 
by  the  general  name  of  the  Ku-Klux  Klan  wras  the  Confederate  Cav- 
alry leader,  General  Forrest.  The  "  order  "  of  which  Forrest  was  a 
member  bore  the  title  of  "  Pale  Faces."  In  its  constitution  and  by- 
laws it  was  designated  only  by  three  stars,  ***  or  *%.  Forrest  esti- 
mated the  strength  of  the  Ku-Klux  organization  in  Tennessee  at 
40,000.  In  North  Carolina  the  Ku-Klux  were  so  numerous,  and  their 
outrages  so  atrocious,  that  in  1870  Governor  Holden  issued  proclama- 
tions declaring  the  counties  of  Alamance  and  Caswell  in  insurrec- 
tion. In  Alamance  County,  where  the  white  population  numbered 
8,234  and  the  colored  population  only  3,640,  fifty-four  outrages  were 
reported  in  1870,  while  in  only  three  of  the  sixteen  counties  in  which 
the  negro  population  was  one-third  greater  than  the  white  popula- 
tion only  two  or  three  outrages  occurred  in  each.  A  part  of  the 
recital  of  outrages  committed  in  North  Carolina  is  here  quoted  from 
Mr.  Cox's  book  because  he  was  always  a  Democrat  and  a  fair-minded 
and  honest  man.  He  says:  "  It  is  impossible  to  pass  over  the  outrages 
committed  upon  Mr.  James  M.  Justice.  He  was  an  attorney-at-law, 
and  a  man  of  respectability.  He  resided  at  Kutherfordton,  in  Ruther- 
ford County.  He  was  a  Republican,  and  a  member  of  the  State 
Legislature.  As  an  attorney,  he  aided  in  the  prosecution  of  members 
of  the  Ku-Klux  Klan.  He  had  given  offense  to  the  order.  In  one  of 
their  secret  conclaves  they  decreed  that  he  must  be  put  to  death. 
His  execution  was  ordered.  The  raid  took  place  on  the  night  of  Sun- 
day, June  11,  1871.  Eighty  or  more  men,  in  the  usual  disguise, 
marched  into  the  village.  They  had  left  their  horses  on  the  outskirts. 
They  surrounded  his  house.  It  was  raining  very  hard.  They  broke 
open  the  door  of  his  dwelling  with  an  ax,  and  several  of  them  entered. 
Hearing  the  noise,  Mr.  Justice  rose  out  of  bed  and  attempted  to  go  to 
his  gun,  but  was  interrupted.  They  lighted  matches  and  found  their 


286  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

victim  before  them  with  only  his  nightshirt  on.  They  ordered  him  to 
come  out  of  the  house.  He  begged  to  be  let  alone.  They  informed 
him  that  his  time  had  come.  They  dragged  him  out  of  his  house. 
When  he  resisted  he  was  struck  with  a  big  pistol  and  fell  down  in- 
sensible. After  he  came  to  consciousness  he  was  forced  to  walk  sev- 
eral hundred  yards  into  the  woods.  There  the  fiends  held  a  council 
over  him.  Although  he  had  screamed  loudly  for  help  when  taken  out 
of  his  house,  and  although  the  neighborhood  was  populous,  none  of 
the  neighbors  dared  to  come  to  his  relief.  In  the  woods  he  pleaded  hard 
for  his  life,  but  the  general  voice  was  for  killing  him.  Finally,  through 
the  influence  of  the  leader,  who  seemed  to  possess  more  intelligence 
and  humanity  than  his  followers,  they  contented  themselves  by  ex- 
torting promises  from  Mr.  Justice.  His  life  was  spared,  and  he  was 
permitted  to  return  home  without  further  suffering  at  their  hands. 
His  only  offense  had  been  his  politics  and  his  prosecution  of  the  Ku- 
Klux  for  their  crimes.  In  his  testimony,  Mr.  Justice  recited  many 
instances  of  outrages  that  had  been  perpetrated  in  Rutherford,  Cleve- 
land, Lincoln,  and  (Jaston  counties.  He  could  not  enumerate  them, 
but  could  only  say  that  there  were  more  than  one  hundred  of  such 
outrages.  Many  men  had  come  to  him  and  exhibited  the  marks  of 
lashes  on  their  backs  and  the  wounds  received  from  guns  and  pistol 
shots.  Mr.  Justice  could  not  remember  all  the  whippings  he  had 
heard  of,  but  they  were  very  numerous.  Among  them  was  that  of  an 
old  white  man,  John  Nodine,  a  soldier  of  the  War  of  1812,  and  a 
citizen  of  the  State,  who  had  been  whipped  for  voting  the  Republican 
ticket. 

"  But  perhaps  the  most  hideous  case  of  whipping  recited  by  Mr. 
Justice  was  that  of  Aaron  Biggerstaff.  He  was  an  old,  white-haired 
gentleman.  A  large  gang  of  raiders  armed  with  guns  and  pistols 
broke  into  his  house  by  night.  They  pulled  the  old  man  out  of  his 
bed.  They  dragged  him  into  the  road  in  front  of  his  house.  There 
they  beat  him  writh  hickories  and  kicked  him  with  their  feet  for  a 
long  time,  and  then  brought  him  back  into  his  house.  This  barbarous 
punishment  was  inflicted  upon  him  merely  on  account  of  his  politics, 
and  because  of  his  harboring  another  man  named  McGahey,  who  had 
retaliated  for  an  outrage  committed  on  his  family,  and  had  shot  one 
of  the  gang  connected  with  it.  Twenty  of  the  members  of  the  band 
who  had  thus  maltreated  Biggerstaff  were  arrested  and  brought  be- 
fore Judge  Logan,  of  the  State  Circuit  Court;  but  Biggerstaff,  his 
son  and  daughter,  while  on  their  way  to  Charlotte  to  prosecute  the 
prisoners,  were  attacked  and  treated  with  great  cruelty,  and  the  old 
man  would  have  been  hanged  by  the  gang  had  it  not  been  that  the 
son,  who  recognized  several  of  them,  had  managed  to  escape.  Being 


THE  SOUTH— FIRST  DECADE  AFTER  THE  WAR.  287 

afraid  of  the  consequences  if  they  proceeded  further  in  their  out- 
rages, they  ordered  Biggerstaff  and  his  daughter  to  return  home 
and  not  to  say  anything  about  what  had  happened  to  them.  Thirty 
men  were  subsequently  tried  before  the  United  States  Circuit  Court 
for  participation  in  the  first  raid  upon  Biggerstaff.  Sixteen  of  them 
were  found  guilty,  and  eight  not  guilty.  As  to  the  other  six  cases,  a 
nolle  proscqui  was  entered.  For  participation  in  the  second  raid  upon 
Biggerstaff  and  his  family,  while  they  were  on  the  road  to  Charlotte, 
five  men  were  arraigned.  Three  pleaded  guilty,  while  a  nolle  prosequi 
was  entered  for  the  other  two." 

In  South  Carolina  the  terrorism  in  Edgefield  county  was  so  great, 
in  1868,  that  out  of  4,200  colored  voters  in  the  county  only  800  voted. 
The  Ku-Klux  previous  to  the  State  and  Presidential  elections  paid 
domicilary  visits  to  black  and  white  Republicans,  shooting  some, 
whipping  many,  and  warning  all  not  to  vote  the  Republican  ticket. 
"  In  reference  to  South  Carolina,"  wrote  Mr.  Cox,  "  the  report  of  the 
Joint  Select  Committee  of  the  two  Houses  of  Congress  of  1872  con- 
tains such  a  mass  of  revolting  details  that  one  can  not  decide  where 
to  begin  their  citation  or  \vhere  to  stop.  Murders,  or  attempts  to  mur- 
der, are  numerous.  Whippings  are  without  number.  Probably  the 
most  cruel  and  cowardly  of  these  last  was  the  whipping  of  Elias  Hill. 
He  was  a  colored  man  who  had,  from  infancy,  been  dwarfed  in  legs 
and  arms.  He  was  unable  to  use  either.  But  he  possessed  an  intelli- 
gent mind,  had  learned  to  read,  and  had  acquired  an  unusual  amount 
of  knowledge  for  one  in  his  circumstances.  He  was  a  Baptist  preacher. 
He  was  highly  respected  for  his  upright  character.  He  was  emi- 
nently religious,  and  was  greatly  revered  by  the  people  of  his  own 
race.  It  was  on  this  ground  that  he  was  visited  by  the  Ku-Klux, 
brutally  beaten,  and  dragged  from  his  house  into  the  yard,  where  he 
was  left  in  the  cold  at  night,  unable  to  walk  or  crawl.  After  the 
fiends  had  left,  his  sister  brought  him  into  the  house.  Although  this 
man  was  a  Republican,  his  testimony  gave  evidence  of  the  mildness 
and  Christian  forbearance  of  his  character,  as  well  as  his  freedom 
from  ill-will  toward  the  white  race.  In  answer  to  a  question  as  to 
his  feeling  toward  the  whites,  he  replied  that  he  had  good-wrill,  love, 
and  affection  toward  them;  but  that  he  feared  them.  He  said  that  he 
had  never  made  the  wrongs  and  cruelties  inflicted  by  white  people  on 
his  race  the  subject  of  his  sermons,  but  that  he  preached  the  Gospel 
only — repentance  toward  God,  and  faith  in  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 

In  Georgia,  as  in  North  and  South  Carolina  and  the  other  States 
where  the  Ku-Klux  organization  existed,  the  outrages  were  in  pro- 
portion to  the  preponderance  of  the  white  population  over  the  blacks. 
There  the  white  men,  whose  principal  occupation  was  to  make  raids 


288  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

upon  the  cabins  of  the  negroes  and  upon  the  teachers  of  negro  schools, 
called  their  society  "  The  Brotherhood."  Although  professing  to  be 
the  defenders  of  society,  these  midnight  prowlers  in  their  hideous  dis- 
guises rarely  encountered  a  foe  unless  they  were  twenty  to  one,  and 
there  were  cases  in  which  a  well-directed  shot  put  to  flight  a  strong 
squadron  of  the  "  Brotherhood."  In  Alabama,  as  in  Georgia,  opposi- 
tion to  the  education  of  the  negro  was  very  pronounced.  In  1870 
William  C.  Luke,  a  white  school  teacher,  was  murdered  near  the 
village  of  Cross  Plains,  in  Calhoun  county.  Alexander  Boyd,  the 
prosecuting  attorney  of  Greene  county,  was  assassinated  the  same 
year  in  the  public  square  in  the  town  of  Eutaw  by  a  band  of  twenty- 
five  disguised  men  because  of  his  activity  in  prosecuting  men  charged 
with  Ku-Klux  outrages.  No  effort  was  made  to  arrest  the  murderers, 
and  none  of  Mr.  Boyd's  legal  brethren  had  the  courage  to  attend  his 
funeral.  President  Lakin,  of  the  State  University  at  Tuscaloosa,  was 
compelled  to  vacate  his  office,  and  many  of  the  students  were  driven 
off  by  the  threats  of  the  Ku-Klux.  In  1868-9  many  of  the  preachers 
of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  South,  and  a  few  belonging  to 
other  denominations,  were  maltreated  by  the  Ku-Klux  "  order."  Two 
presiding  elders,  the  Rev.  J.  A.  McCutcheon  and  the  Rev.  John  W. 
Tailby,  were  driven  awray  from  their  districts;  the  Rev.  Mr.  Sullivan, 
the  Rev.  James  Dorman,  and  the  Rev.  George  Taylor  were  whipped; 
Dean  Reynolds  was  whipped,  and  left  for  dead,  with  both  arms 
broken;  the  Rev.  Jesse  Kingston,  a  local  preacher,  was  shot  in  1869; 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Johnson  was  shot  in  the  pulpit  the  same  year,  and  a 
colored  preacher  and  his  son  were  shot  dead  on  the  West  Point  and 
Montgomery  road.  It  seems  necessary  to  emphasize  the  fact  that  in 
Alabama,  as  elsewhere,  the  outrages  were  most  frequent  in  counties 
where  the  negroes  were  fewest. 

None  of  the  States  was  subjected  to  more  frequent  or  more  atrocious 
Ku-Klux  outrages  than  Mississippi.  In  those  counties  in  which  the 
ratio  of  the  negro  population  was  in  inverse  proportion  to  the  strength 
of  the  Ku-Klux  organization  war  was  made  upon  the  schools,  the 
churches,  and  the  courts.  Judge  Bramlette  was  shot  dead  on  the 
bench  at  Meridian;  a  colored  Baptist  church  wras  burned,  besides  a 
number  of  houses,  and  many  negroes  were  killed.  Mr.  Flournoy,  the 
Superintendent  of  Schools  for  Pontotoc  county,  was  raided  by  a  band 
of  Ku-Klux  in  1871,  but,  having  received  notice  of  the  intended  raid, 
he  resisted  the  attack,  assisted  by  some  of  his  neighbors,  and  drove 
off  the  assailants.  There  were  sixty-four  public  schools  in  the  county, 
of  which  only  twelve  were  for  colored  children.  Among  the  teachers 
were  eleven  Republicans,  one  a  colored  man,  to  forty-three  Democrats. 
The  Republican  teachers  were  all  driven  off  and  some  of  them  were 


THE  SOUTH—FIRST  DECADE  AFTER  THE  WAR.  289 

whipped.  Similar  conditions  prevailed  in  other  counties.  Another 
school  superintendent,  A.  P.  Huggins,  was  given  as  many  as  seventy- 
live  lashes  by  a  mob,  and  was  whipped  to  insensibility  for  refusing  to 
leave  the  county  when  ordered  by  the  "  Klan."  "  It  ought  to  be  said/' 
says  Mr.  Cox,  "  not  in  extenuation  of  the  crime,  but  in  explanation  of 
it,  that  the  popular  dislike  to  Mr.  Huggins  arose  from  his  active  in- 
strumentality in  the  exaction  of  heavy  taxes  and  his  alleged  ex- 
travagant and  dishonest  use  of  the  school  moneys  that  passed  through 
his  hands.  He  was  supposed  to  pay  extravagant  wages  to  teachers 
and  exorbitant  prices  for  school  buildings  and  furniture.  He  had 
graduated  as  a  philanthropist  in  the  school  of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau, 
where  he  had  not  learned  the  lesson:  i  Thou  shalt  not  muzzle  the  ox 
that  treadeth  out  the  corn.' '  It  is  not  improbable  that  Superin- 
tendent Huggins  was  wickedly  maligned  as  w*ell  #s  cruelly  beaten. 

Similar  conditions  to  those  already  described  prevailed  in  Tennes- 
see, Arkansas,  Louisiana,  and  Texas,  but  Virginia  was  almost  wholly 
free  from  Ku-Klux  outrages.  Florida  escaped  Ku-Klux  disorders  to 
a  greater  degree  than  any  of  the  other  Gulf  States.  The  Democrats 
of  the  North  encouraged  these  disorders  by  claiming  that  they  were 
due  to  repression,  whereas  repression  and  military  government  were 
rendered  necessary  by  the  disorders  and  the  defiant  tone  assumed  by 
the  conquered  Confederates.  The  outrages  continued  over  a  period 
of  fully  twenty  years,  and  would  be  repeated  far  into  the  twentieth 
century  if  the  negroes  were  resolute  in  asserting  their  rights  as 
citizens. 

The  writer  of  these  pages  made  a  tour  of  the  four  States  of  Ten- 
nessee, Alabama,  Mississippi,  and  Louisiana  in  1874.  It  was  a  time 
when  the  Northern  newspapers  were  full  of  reports  of  negro  riots,  in 
which  few  white  men,  but  many  blacks,  were  killed.  On  his  way 
from  Louisville  to  Humboldt,  Tenn.,  where  a  riot  had  occurred  a  few 
days  before,  he  stopped  at  Paris,  Ky.,  for  breakfast.  After  breakfast 
a  Southern  gentleman  in  the  smoking  car  said  politely:  "Will  you 
oblige  me  by  looking  out  of  the  window  for  half  an  hour  while  you 
smoke,  and  then  tell  me  what  impresses  you  most  of  what  you  have 
seen?  "  The  request  was  unusual,  but  because  it  was  unusual  it  met 
with  ready  acquiescence.  "Well,  wrhat  have  you  seen?"  asked  the 
Southerner  when  the  time  had  expired. 

"  The  only  thing  that  to  me  seems  peculiar,"  was  the  answer,  "  is 
the  fact  that  so  many  negroes,  who  are  not  working,  are  lurking  in 
the  fields  of  corn  as  if  in  hiding." 

"  Ah,  that  is  it,"  said  the  questioner.  "  They  are  keeping  out  of  the 
way  of  the  night  riders." 

The  Southern  man  entered  into  a  long  and  careful  consideration  of 


290  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

the  condition  of  the  South  for  the  benefit  of  the  Northern  traveler. 
When  the  two  strangers  separated  they  exchanged  cards,  he  of  the 
South  asking  him  of  the  North  to  visit  him  at  his  place  of  business 
in  Memphis.  The  visit  was  made  a  few  days  later. 

"  Why  did  you  make  that  peculiar  request  of  me  in  the  smoking 
car?  "  asked  the  Northern  man  of  the  Southerner  during  the  inter- 
view. 

"  Well,  you  see,  I  took  the  fancy  that  you  were  the  representative 
of  a  New  York  newspaper,  and  I  wanted  you  to  see  for  yourself/'  was 
the  response.  "  Because  of  these  night  rides  of  our  young  men  busi- 
ness is  prostrate  in  the  South.  It  will  not  revive  while  the  present 
condition  lasts.  I  thought  that  if  the  truth  should  be  told  in  a  power- 
ful Northern  newspaper,  friendly  to  the  South,  it  would  be  an  aid 
toward  the  revival  of  business  by  helping  to  bring  existing  conditions 
to  an  end." 

The  letters  that  were  the  results  of  the  hints  and  suggestions  of 
the  Memphis  merchant  contributed  to  the  end  he  had  so  much  at 
heart.  But  Robert  Tyler,  a  son  of  President  John  Tyler,  wrote  to  the 
journal  of  which  the  Northern  traveler  was  the  representative,  ask- 
ing that  he  be  dismissed  for  misrepresenting  the  South.  "  His  lies  are 
so  dispassionate  and  so  free  from  any  appearance  of  political  feeling," 
said  Mr.  Tyler,  "  that  they  will  all  the  more  readily  be  believed  on 
that  account."  On  the  contrary,  what  Mr.  Tyler  called  lies  were  really 
helpful  to  the  South  because  they  were  true.  The  exposure  of  the 
truth  was  the  first  step  toward  the  end  of  a  condition  that  had  become 
intolerable. 

The  wrongs  and  outrages  of  the  Ku-Klux  were  to  a  great  extent 
smothered  in  the  North  by  the  outcry  against  Northern  men  in  the 
South  who  were  known  by  the  opprobrious  name  of  "  carpet-baggers." 
They  were  for  the  most  part  agents  of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau,  minis- 
ters of  the  Gospel,  and  school  teachers.  Carpet-baggers  and  carpet- 
bag rule  were  subjects  of  Democratic  vituperation  for  many  years. 
One  of  these  diatribes,  from  the  pen  of  Judge  Jeremiah  S.  Black,  is 
worthy  of  reproduction  here  for  its  bitterness  and  sonorous  wrong- 
headedness,  if  for  no  other  reason:  "  The  people  would  not  have  been 
wholly  crushed  either  by  the  soldier  or  the  negro  if  both  had  not  been 
used  to  fasten  upon  them  the  domination  of  another  class  of  persons 
which  was  altogether  unendurable.  These  were  called  carpet-bag- 
gers, not  because  the  word  is  descriptive  or  euphonious,  but  because 
they  have  no  other  name  whereby  they  are  known  among  the  children 
of  men.  They  were  unprincipled  adventurers,  who  sought  their  for- 
tunes in  the  South  by  plundering  the  disarmed  and  defenseless 
people;  some  of  them  were  the  dregs  of  the  Federal  army — the 


THE  SOUTH— FIRST  DECADE  AFTER  THE  WAR.  291 

meanest  of  the  camp-followers;  many  were  fugitives  from  Northern 
justice;  the  best  of  them  were  those  who  went  down  after  the  peace, 
read}'  for  any  deed  of  shame  that  was  safe  and  profitable.  These, 
combining  with  a  few  treacherous  i  scalawags,'  and  some  leading- 
negroes  to  serve  as  decoys  for  the  rest,  and  backed  by  the  power  of 
the  general  government,  became  the  strongest  body  of  thieves  that 
ever  pillaged  a  people.  Their  moral  grade  was  far  lower,  and  yet 
they  were  much  more  powerful  than  the  robber-bands  that  infested 
Germany  after  the  close  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War.  They  swarmed 
over  all  the  States,  from  the  Potomac  to  the  Gulf,  and  settled  in 
hordes,  not  with  intent  to  remain  there,  but  merely  to  feed  on  the 
substance  of  a  prostrate  and  defenseless  people.  They  took  whatever 
came  within  their  reach,  intruding  themselves  into  all  private  cor- 
porations, assumed  the  functions  of  all  offices,  including  the  courts 
of  justice,  and  in  many  places  they  even  '  ran  the  churches.'  By  force 
and  fraud,  they  either  controlled  all  elections,  or  else  prevented 
elections  from  being  held.  They  returned  sixty  of  themselves  to  one 
Congress,  and  ten  or  twelve  of  the  most  ignorant  and  venal  among 
them  were  at  the  same  time  thrust  into  the  Senate. 

"  This  false  representation  of  a  people  by  strangers  and  enemies, 
who  had  not  even  a  boiia  fide  residence  among  them,  was  the  bitterest 
of  all  mockeries.  There  was  no  show  of  truth  or  honor  about  it.  The 
pretended  representative  was  always  ready  to  vote  for  any  measure 
that  would  oppress  and  enslave  his  so-called  constituents;  his  hos- 
tility was  unconcealed,  and  he  lost  no  opportunity  to  do  them  injury. 
Under  all  these  wrongs  and  indignities  the  Caucasian  men  of  the 
South  were  prudent,  if  not  patient.  No  brave  people,  accustomed  to 
be  free,  ever  endured  oppression  so  peacefully  or  so  wisely.  The  Irish, 
with  less  provocation,  were  in  a  state  of  perpetual  turbulence;  the 
Poles  were  always  conspiring  against  the  milder  rule  of  their  Rus- 
sian masters;  but  Southern  men  made  haste  slowly  to  recover  their 
liberties.  They  could  not  break  the  shacktes  of  usurped  control;  some 
of  the  links  gradually  rusted  and  fell  away  of  themselves.  The  gross 
impolicy  of  desolating  the  fairest  half  of  the  country  impressed  itself 
more  and  more  upon  the  Northern  mind;  the  mere  expense  in  money 
of  maintaining  this  vulgar  tyranny  became  disgusting.  The  negroes 
gradually  opened  their  eyes  to  the  truth  that  they  were  as  badly  im- 
posed upon  as  the  whites.  With  consummate  skill,  the  natural 
leaders  of  the  people  hoarded  every  fresh  acquisition  of  self-governing 
power.  State  after  State  deposed  its  corrupt  governors  by  impeach- 
ment or  otherwise,  and  brought  its  official  criminals  to  justice,  until 
all  were  redeemed  except  Florida,  South  Carolina,  and  Louisiana. 
A  more  particular  look  at  the  condition  of  the  last-named  State  is 
needed,  because  it  was  the  principal  theater  of  the  i  Great  Fraud.' 


292  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

"  The  agricultural  and  commercial  wealth  of  Louisiana  made  her 
a  strong  temptation  to  the  carpet-baggers.  Those  vultures  sniffed  the 
prey  from  afar;  and,  as  soon  as  the  war  was  over,  they  swooped  down 
upon  her  in  flocks  that  darkened  the  air.  The  State  was  delivered 
into  their  hands  by  the  military  authorities,  but  the  officers  imposed 
some  restraints  upon  their  lawless  cupidity.  They  hailed  with  delight 
the  advent  of  negro  suffrage,  because  to  them  it  was  merely  a  legal- 
ized method  of  stuffing  the  ballot-box,  and  they  stuffed  it.  Thence- 
forth and  down  to  a  very  recent  period,  they  gorged  themselves  with- 
out let  or  hindrance.  The  depredations  they  committed  were  fright- 
ful. They  appropriated,  on  one  pretense  or  another,  whatever  they 
could  lay  their  hands  on,  and  then  pledged  to  themselves  the  credit 
of  the  State  for  uncounted  millions  more.  The  public  securities  ran 
down  to  half-price,  and  still  they  put  their  fraudulent  bonds  on  the 
market,  and  sold  them  for  what  they  would  fetch.  The  owners  of  the 
best  real  estate,  in  town  or  country,  were  utterly  impoverished,  be- 
cause the  burdens  upon  it  were  heavier  than  the  rents  would  dis- 
charge. During  the  last  ten  years  the  City  of  New  Orleans  paid,  in  the 
form  of  direct  taxes,  more  than  the  estimated  value  of  all  the 
property  within  her  limits,  and  still  has  a  debt  of  equal  amount  un- 
paid. It  is  not  likely  that  other  parts  of  the  State  suffered  less.  The 
extent  of  their  spoliation  can  hardly  be  calculated,  but  the  testimony 
of  the  carpet-baggers  themselves  against  one  another,  the  reports  of 
committees  sent  by  Congress  to  investigate  the  subject,  and  other 
information  from  sources  entirely  authentic  make  it  safe  to  say  that 
a  general  conflagration,  sweeping  over  all  the  State  from  one  end  to 
the  other,  and  destroying  every  building  and  every  article  of  personal 
property,  would  have  been  a  visitation  of  mercy  in  comparison  to  the 
curse  of  such  a  government.  This  may  seem  at  first  blush  like  gros« 
exaggeration  because  it  is  worse  than  anything  that  misrule  evei 
did  before." 

Some  of  these  things  are  true,  but  they  became  true  only  because 
the  white  men  of  the  South  preferred  anarchy  to  peace,  and  right,  and 
justice,  and  humanity.  After  four  years  of  war  the  men  who  had 
fought  for  slavery  not  only  sought  to  exercise  all  the  rights  of  citizens 
without  any  feeling  of  repentance,  or  sense  of  shame,  but  they  tried 
to  re-enslave  the  freedmen  by  enactments  so  inhuman  that  it  is  only 
possible  to  find  a  parallel  for  them  in  the  slave  codes  before  the 
Christian  era,  when  workingmen  were  without  souls.  In  no  honor- 
able sense  were  the  secret  societies  of  the  South — the  "  Brotherhood," 
the  "  Pale  Faces,"  the  "  Invisible  Empire,"  and  the  "  Knights  of  the 
White  Camellia,'"  all  finally  compounded  in  the  Ku-Klux  Klan — 
political  organizations.  They  were  established  to  continue  in  dark- 


THE  SOUTH— FIRST  DECADE  AFTER  THE  WAR.  293 

ness  the  war  that  had  failed  after  hundreds  of  bloody  battles.  For 
these  crimes  one  party,  and  only  one,  was  responsible — the  Democ- 
racy. What  a  hideous  history  this  party  has,  not  only  before  and 
during  the  war,  but  after  it.  So  imbruted  had  it  become  by  three- 
quarters  of  a  century  of  devotion  to  slavery,  that  even  with  peace  it 
was  willing  to  lend  itself  to  any  infamy.  Had  it  not  been  for  the 
degrading  attitude  of  the  Northern  Democracy  the  South  would  have 
quickly  returned  to  its  allegiance  and  its  duty.  It  was  because  of  the 
encouragement  of  the  Democratic  party  that  the  white  men  of  the 
South  resolved  upon  and  persisted  in  a  war  of  extermination  of  the 
negro  race.  It  was  this  hatred  of  the  freedmen  that  made  Constitu- 
tional Amendments,  Reconstruction  Acts,  and  military  government 
necessary  to  restoration.  If  the  Confederate  veterans  had  returned  to 
their  homes  and  resumed  the  vocations  of  peace  like  the  soldiers  of  the 
Union;  if  the  Southern  leaders  had  refrained  from  adopting  inhuman 
enactments  to  oppress  and  re-enslave  the  negro;  if  the  Southern  peo- 
ple had  accepted  the  fortunes  of  war  without  resort  to  secret  societies 
and  night  raids  upon  the  blacks,  there  would  have  been  no  military 
governors,  no  Force  bills,  no  carpet-bag  governments,  and  no  uni- 
versal suffrage  for  many  a  long  year.  Many  of  the  ills  of  transition 
would  have  been  avoided  if  there  had  been  no  Peace  Democracy  in 
war  times,  and  no  War  Democracy  in  times  of  peace.  The  carpet- 
bagger would  have  been  a  blessing,  and  not  a  curse,  if  anarchy  had 
not  been  fostered  in  every  Southern  State  by  the  Democratic  party 
and  its  narrow,  selfish,  and  bigoted  leaders. 

Whatever  may  be  the  truth  in  regard  to  Judge  Black's  sweeping 
charges  of  the  spoliations  of  the  carpet-bag  governments  in  the  South, 
it  is  not  true  that  the  Republican  party  was  responsible  for  them. 
The  same  causes  that  made  repression  necessary  made  them  possible. 
It  was  misrule  begotten  of  disorder.  But  it  was  a  reckless  libel  upon 
men  as  fairly  honest  and  intelligent  as  the  South  has  ever  had  in  Con- 
gress to  say  of  the  carpet-bag  element  that  "  ten  or  twelve  of  the  most 
ignorant  and  venal  among  them  "  were  thrust  into  the  Senate.  The 
Senators  from  the  South  during  the  brief  period  of  Republican  su- 
premacy were  fully  equal,  as  regards  intelligence  and  integrity,  to 
their  successors,  and,  it  may  be  added,  to  their  predecessors.  It  can 
not  be  denied  that  the  negroes  elected  to  Congress  made  creditable 
Representatives.  If  the  objects  aimed  at  by  the  majority  in  Congress 
during  the  periods  of  Reconstruction  and  Restoration  were  unaccom- 
plished, or  only  partly  accomplished,  it  was  because  prejudice  stood 
in  the  way  of  principle — because  a  great  and  noble  purpose  was 
thwarted  by  narrow  personal  and  partisan  interests.  In  the  end  the 
results  will  justify  the  wisdom  of  Congress  and  of  Republican  policy. 


294  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

A  glance  at  the  legislation  of  Congress,  affecting  the  South  during 
General  Grant's  administration,  is  necessary  to  a  complete  under- 
standing of  the  efforts  that  were  made  by  the  Government  to  meet 
the  dangerous  situation  created  by  the  desperate  elements  of  the 
Southern  States.  By  the  Act  of  April  20,  1871,  "  to  enforce  the  pro- 
visions of  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  to  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  "  (commonly  known  as  the  Ku-Klux  Act,  or  the  En- 
forcement Act),  the  President  was  empowered  to  go  to  the  extreme 
length  of  suspending  the  writ  of  Habeas  Corpus  where  peace  and  order 
could  not  otherwise  be  restored.  Before  acting  under  the  provisions 
of  that  vigorous  statute,  General  Grant  gave  warning  to  the  Southern 
people  by  proclamation,  May  3,  1871,  that  they  might  themselves,  by 
good  behavior,  prevent  the  necessity  of  its  enforcement.  "  Sensible," 
said  the  President,  "  of  the  responsibility  imposed  upon  the  Executive 
by  the  Act  of  Congress  to  which  public  attention  is  now  called,  and 
reluctant  to  call  into  exercise  any  of  the  ordinary  powers  thereby  con- 
ferred upon  me,  except  in  case  of  imperative  necessity,  I  do,  neverthe- 
less, deem  it  my  duty  to  make  known  that  I  will  not  hesitate  to  ex- 
haust the  powers  thus  vested  in  the  Executive  whenever  and  wher- 
ever it  shall  become  necessary  to  do  so,  for  the  purpose  of  securing  to 
all  citizens  of  the  United  States  the  peaceful  enjoyment  of  the  rights 
guaranteed  to  them  by  the  Constitution  and  laws.'' 

A  standing  grievance  of  the  Democratic  party  throughout  the 
seven  years  following  the  war  wras  the  political  disability  affecting 
large  classes  in  the  Southern  States  under  the  Fourteenth  Amend- 
ment to  the  Constitution.  In  many  cases  this  disability  was  removed 
by  special  acts  of  Congress,  beginning  with  Roderick  R.  Butler,  of 
Tennessee,  in  1868.  The  40th  Congress  extended  amnesty  to  fully 
fifteen  hundred  persons,  and  the  number  of  those  relieved  by  the 
41st  Congress  reached  thirty-three  hundred.  Then,  in  1871, 
came  the  Amnesty  bill,  which  left  under  disability  participants  in 
the  Rebellion  not  exceeding  seven  hundred  and  fifty  persons.  The 
passage  of  this  measure  was  delayed  by  the  unwillingness  of  the 
Democratic  party  to  accept  political  amnesty  for  their  political 
friends  in  the  South  in  conjunction  writh  the  liberation  of  the  colored 
man  from  odious  personal  discrimination.  When  the  Amnesty  bill 
came  before  the  House  Mr.  Rainey,  of  South  Carolina,  speaking  for 
his  race,  said : 

u  It  is  not  the  disposition  of  my  constituents  that  these  disabilities 
should  longer  be  retained.  We  are  desirous  of  being  magnanimous: 
it  may  be  that  we  are  so  to  a  fault.  Nevertheless,  we  have  open  and 
frank  hearts  toward  those  who  were  our  former  oppressors  and  task- 
masters. We  foster  no  enmitv  now,  and  we  desire  to  foster  none,  for 


THE  SOUTH— FIRST  DECADE  AFTER  THE  WAR.  295 

their  acts  in  the  past  to  us  or  to  the  Government  we  love  so  well.  But 
while  we  are  willing  to  accord  them  their  enfranchisement  and  here 
to-day  cast  our  votes  that  they  may  be  amnestied;  while  we  declare 
our  hearts  open  and  free  from  any  vindictive  feelings  toward  them, 
Ave  Avould  say  to  those  gentlemen  on  the  other  side  that  there  is  an- 
other class  of  citizens  in  the  country  who  haAre  certain  rights  and  im- 
munities Avhich  they  would  like  you,  sirs,  to  remember  and  respect. 
.  .  .  We  invoke  you,  gentlemen,  to  show  the  same  kindly  feeling 
toward  us,  a  race  long  oppressed,  and  in  demonstration  of  this  hu- 
man and  just  feeling  I  implore  you,  give  support  to  the  Civil  Rights 
bill,  Avhich  he  have  been  asking  at  your  hands  lo!  these  many  days." 

The  Civil  Rights  bill,  which  was  originated  by  Mr.  Simmer,  \vas 
not  made  a  part  of  the  Amnesty  bill,  because  the  former  could  be 
passed  by  the  majority,  wThile  the  latter  required  a  two-thirds  vote. 
In  the  House  the  Amnesty  bill  Avas  passed  before  the  passage  of  the 
Civil  Rights  bill  Avas  pressed,  but  the  Senate  determined  that  the  two 
measures  should  keep  even  pace,  and  the  Civil  Rights  bill  Avas  first 
adopted.  The  Amnesty  bill  Avas  then  passed.  The  Civil  Rights  bill, 
as  it  passed  the  Senate,  was  amended  so  as  to  eliminate  provisions 
relating  to  equality  in  jury  service  and  the  public  schools.  This  oc- 
curred in  the  absence  of  Mr.  Sumner.  Simmer  afterward  voted  against 
the  Amnesty  bill  in  consequence,  and  the  Civil  Rights  bill  failed  in 
the  Plouse  through  Democratic  opposition.  This  was  in  1872.  In 
January,  1874,  Mr.  Sumner  again  introduced  his  Civil  Rights  bill  in 
the  Senate,  but  the  period  of  reaction  had  already  begun,  and  it  was 
too  late  to  secure  the  measure  of  justice  for  the  negro.  For  many 
years  the  black  man  was  practically  disfranchised  in  the  South,  and 
he  is  even  now  only  slowly  gaining  his  rights  as  a  citizen. 

It  is  impossible  to  contemplate  the  condition  of  the  South  during 
the  first  decade  after  the  war  without  an  impulse  of  pity  stronger 
than  the  feelings  of  indignation  that  the  outrages  of  the  Ku-Klux 
naturally  inspire.  The  conditions  imposed  upon  the  South  were  never 
tyrannical — they  Avere  not  even  harsh.  The  transition  from  rebellion 
to  allegiance  Avould  have  been  easy  if  outrage  had  not  compelled 
repression.  Repression  followed,  it  did  not  precede  organized  in- 
timidation and  terrorism.  It  was  not  resistance  to  Republican  policy 
that  renders  the  history  of  the  epoch  so  disgraceful,  but  the  character 
of  Avhat  a  Democratic  historian  calls  resistance.  "  It  Avas  directed," 
he  says,  "  against  the  colored  people  and  against  their  white  allies 
and  leaders.  It  made  an  objectiA^e  point  of  the  agents  of  the  Freed- 
men's  Bureau,  ministers  of  the  Gospel,  and  school  teachers — all  ad- 
venturers from  the  North,  or  men  who  had,  in  quest  of  fortune,  em- 
igrated into  these  States.  All  of  these  classes  were  regarded  as 


296  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

public  or  private  enemies.  They  were  designated  by  the  opprobrious 
title  of  '  carpet-baggers.'  The  history  of  these  outrages  tills  many 
volumes  of  reports  made  by  joint  and  separate  committees  of  the  two 
Houses  .of  Congress.  It  is  from  these  volumes,  from  reports  of  mili- 
tary commanders  in  the  South,  and  from  other  official  documents, 
that  the  following  epitome,  exhibiting  the  lawlessness  that  prevailed 
in  the  Southern  States  during  the  second  decade  between  1865  and 
1875,  is  made.  These  documents  are  so  full  of  the  details  of  crime 
and  violence,  and  are  so  voluminous,  that  it  is  exceedingly  difficult  to 
select  from  them,  or  to  convey  a  correct  idea  of  their  revelations."  As 
this  is  a  Democratic  indictment,  it  must  be  regarded  as  unanswerable 
in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  Democracy  was  the  ally  of  the  Ku-Klux. 


V. 

THE   GRANT   AND   AVILSON   CAMPAIGN. 

Republican  Discontent — The  Liberal  Republican  Movement — Conven- 
tion at  Cincinnati — Horace  Greeley  Nominated  for  President 
and  B.  Gratz  Brown  for  Vice-President — Republican  National 
Convention  at  Philadelphia — President  Grant  Renoininated— 
The  Opposition  to  Vice-President  Colfax — Henry  Wilson  Nomi- 
nated— The  Republican  Platform — Democratic  National  Conven- 
tion at  Baltimore — Indorsement  of  the  Cincinnati  Ticket  and 
Platform — Grant  and  Greeley — The  Canvass — Mr.  Greeley's 
Tour — Results  of  the  Autumn  Elections — *Greeley's  Overwhelm- 
ing Defeat — His  Death — The  Electoral  Count. 


HE  Presidential  election  of  1872  turned  upon  the  discontent 
of  a  considerable  wing  of  the  Republican  party  with  Presi- 
dent Grant's  administration.  For  the  first  time  in  the  his- 
tory of  American  politics  a  party  was  organized  that  owed 
its  existence  mainly  to  the  personal  resentments  of  prominent  polit- 
ical leaders.  In  almost  every  State  there  wras  an  eminent  Republican 
who  had  been  estranged  since  the  elections  of  1868.  The  deposition 
of  Senator  Sumner  from  the  chairmanship  of  the  Committee  on  For- 
eign Relations  had  driven  him  into  opposition  to  the  Administration 
in  the  Senate  and  alienated  his  friends.  Other  Senators  who  joined 
Sumner  in  his  hostility  to  General  Grant  and  to  the  measures  and 
policy  of  the  Government  were  Fenton,  of  New  York;  Trumbull,  of 
Illinois,  and  Schurz,  of  Missouri.  In  New  York  the  party  had  been 
divided  into  two  wings  two  years  before  through  the  rivalries  of  Mr. 
Fenton  and  Mr.  Conkling  for  the  leadership.  Fenton  had  been  the 
Republican  leader  in  that  State  from  1863  to  1869.  When  Conkling 
was  elected  to  the  United  States  Senate  he  determined  to  obtain  the 
control  of  the  party.  The  contest  occurred  in  the  State  Convention,  in 
1871.  Both  the  New  York  Senators  were  on  the  ground,  Mr.  Fenton 
guiding  his  friends  in  the  Convention  from  his  chamber  through  his 
lieutenants,  while  Mr.  Conkling  led  his  forces  in  person  on  the  floor 
of  the  Convention.  New  York  City  had  sent  two  sets  of  delegates, 
each  claiming  regularity  for  itself  to  the  exclusion  of  the  other.  One 
of  these  delegations  represented  the  friends  of  Mr.  Greeley,  who  had 
been  beaten  for  the  nomination  for  Governor  the  year  before  by  Gen- 
eral Stewart  L.  Woodford,  and  tvas  in  the  interest  of  Mr.  Fenton. 


298 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 


The  other  was  a  Conkling  delegation.  The  Convention  was  on  the  point 
of  settling  the  controversy  by  admitting  both  delegations  with  an 


equal  voice  and  vote,  but  Mr.  Conkling,  through  one  of  those  exhibi- 
tions of  forceful  oratory  for  which  he  was  then  famous,  succeeded  in 


THE   GRANT   AND   WILSON    CAMPAIGN.  299 

changing  its  purpose.  The  exclusion  of  the  Greeley-Fenton  delega- 
tion left  Mr.  Colliding  in  full  control  of  the  Convention  and  of  the 
party  organization.  Conkling's  supremacy  Was  confirmed  a  few  weeks 
later  by  the  overthrow  of  the  "  Tweed  Kin-gP?  in  New  York  City,  and 
the  complete  triumph  of  the  Republicans  dri  the  November  elections. 
Trumbull  had  never  been  in  hearty  accord' with  the  Republican  party, 
and  Schurz  was  an  erratic  politician,  unwilling  to  follow  where  he 
could  not  lead.  Those  four  eminent  Senators  gave  the  Liberal  Re- 
publican movement  of  1872  a  fictitious  prestige  that  made  it  seem 
more  formidable  than  it  proved. 

The  name  of  Liberal  Republicans  was  first  applied  to  a  successful 
faction  in  Missouri  in  1871,  and  it  was  under  a  call  emanating  from 
a  State  Convention  of  this  faction  that  the  National  Liberal  Repub- 
lican Convention  was  held  at  Cincinnati,  May  1,  1872.  Like  the  first 
Republican  National  Convention  of  1856,  the  delegates  were  self-ap- 
pointed. Among  those  who  had  been  conspicuous  as  Republicans  in 
their  States  were  Judge  Henry  R.  Selden,  General  John  Cochrane, 
Theodore  Tilton.  William  Dorsheimer,  and  Waldo  Hutchins,  of  New 
York;  Colonel  A.  K.  McClure  and  John  Hickman,  of  Pennsylvania; 
Stanley  Matthews,  George  Hoadly,  and  Judge  R.  P.  Spalding,  of  Ohio; 
George  W.  Julian,  of  Indiana;  John  Wentworth,  Leonard  Swett, 
Lieutenant-Governor  Koerner  and  Horace  White,  of  Illinois;  Carl 
Schurz,  William  M.  Grosvenor,  and  Joseph  Pulitzer,  of  Missouri;  Cas- 
sius  M.  Clay,  of  Kentucky;  Frank  W.  Bird  and  Edward  Atkinson,  of 
Massachusetts;  David  A.  WTells,  of  Connecticut,  and  John  D.  Defrees, 
of  the  District  of  Columbia.  There  were  many  others  only  less  con- 
spicuous. With  a  few  exceptions,  these  afterward  became  Democrats. 
David  Dudley  Field,  of  New  York,  was  also  a  volunteer  delegate,  but 
he  was  excluded  from  the  Convention  by  the  friends  of  Mr.  Greeley 
because  of  his  outspoken  sentiments  in  favor  of  Free  Trade.  Mr. 
Matthews  was  made  temporary,  and  Mr.  Schurz  permanent  President 
of  the  Convention. 

The  work  of  the  Convention  resulted  only  in  lame  and  impotent  con- 
clusions. The  Platform  was  prefaced  with  a  violent  arraignment  of 
the  Republican  party,  the  Administration,  and  the  President.  Gen- 
eral Grant  wras  accused  in  terms  as  sonorous  and  bitter  as  the  accusa- 
tions of  George  III.  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  Such  accusa- 
tions could  only  react  upon  the  accusers.  In  most  other  respects  the 
Convention  borrowed  its  platform  from  the  party  it  professed  to  an- 
tagonize. It  recognized  the  equality  of  all  men  before  the  law,  and 
the  duty  of  equal  and  exact  justice  to  all;  it  promised  fidelity  to  the 
Union,  emancipation  and  enfranchisement,  and  declared  opposition 
to  any  reopening  of  questions  settled  by  the  amendments  to  the  Con- 


300  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

stitution;  it  demanded  the  immediate  and  absolute  removal  of  all 
disabilities  imposed  on  account  of  the  Rebellion;  it  asserted  that  local 
self-government  with  impartial  suffrage  would  guard  the  rights  of  all 
citizens  more  securely  than  any  centralized  power,  and  insisted  on 
the  supremacy  of  the  civil  over  the  military  power;  it  urged  the  neces- 
sity of  a  reform  of  the  civil  service,  and  declared  that  no  President 
should  be  a  candidate  for  re-election;  and  it  denounced  repudiation, 
opposed  further  land  grants,  and  advocated  a  return  to  specie  pay- 
ments. The  questions  of  Protection  and  Free  Trade  were  remitted  to 
the  people  in  their  Congress  districts,  and  to  the  decision  of  Congress, 
free  from  Executive  interference  or  dictation — a  compromise  that  was 
not  a  settlement. 

Seven  candidates  for  President  were  voted  for,  and  six  ballots  were 
taken  as  follows: 

1st    2d     3d     4th    5th    Oth 
Charles  Francis  Adams,  Massachusetts .   203    243    264    279    258    324 

Horace  Greeley,  New  York 147    245    258    251    309    332 

Lyman  Trumbull,  Illinois 110    148    156    141      81      19 

B.  Gratz  Brown,  Missouri 95        2        2        2        2 

David  Davis,  Illinois 92^    75      41      51      30        6 

Andrew  G.  Curtin,  Pennsylvania 62 

Salmon  P.  Chase,  Ohio 21      1  24      32 

Both  the  candidate  and  platform  were  grievous  disappointments 
to  the  men  who  had  called  the  Convention  and  to  a  large  number  of 
those  who  composed  it.  The  Western  delegates  were  nearly  all  Free 
Traders,  and  the  Missouri  group  was  especially  pronounced  in  op- 
position to  Protection.  It  was  a  Free  Trade  party  the  latter  had  in 
view  when  they  called  the  Convention.  Instead  of  meeting  their 
wishes,  the  Convention  surrendered  Free  Trade  as  a  principle,  and 
then  nominated  the  most  eminent  advocate  of  Protection  in  the  coun- 
try on  a  platform  molded  in  accordance  with  his  views  of  the  best  way 
to  straddle  an  issue.  But  Horace  Greeley's  nomination  was  not 
effected  without  determined  opposition.  At  the  outset  the  nomina- 
tion of  Charles  Francis  Adams  seemed  a  foregone  conclusion.  Mr. 
Adams  lacked  the  popular  qualities  of  Judge  David  Davis,  who  was 
the  candidate  that  his  supporters  most  feared.  In  manner  he  was 
cold,  austere,  and  even  repellent.  But  he  possessed  great  personal 
and  political  prestige.  He  wTas  the  son  of  one  President  and  the 
grandson  of  another.  He  had  had  large  experience  in  public  affairs, 
both  as  a  member  of  Congress  and  in  the  diplomatic  service.  His 
supporters  claimed  that  his  name  would  inspire  public  confidence.  If 
it  had  not  been  for  the  violence  of  their  hostility  to  Judge  Davis  it  is 


THE  GRANT  AND   WILSON   CAMPAIGN.  301 

probable  they  would  have  succeeded  in  nominating  him.  Davis  was 
in  many  respects  the  reverse  of  Adams.  He  possessed  many  elements 
of  popularity.  He  had  been  the  intimate  friend  of  Lincoln,  whereas, 
Mr.  Adams  placed  a  low  estimate  upon  Lincoln's  character  and 
abilities.  He  was  rich,  but  honest,  and  that  he  had  the  confidence  of 
the  Labor  Keformers  was  shown  by  his  nomination  for  the  Presidency 
by  a  National  Labor  Reform  Convention  at  Columbus,  Ohio,  in  the 
preceding  February.  It  was  then  expected  that  the  entire  opposition 
could  be  concentrated  on  his  candidature.  The  friends  of  Adams  at 
Cincinnati  rendered  such  concentration  impossible.  They  charged 
Da  vis's  friends  with  bringing  a  large  body  of  hirelings  from  Illinois 
and  packing  the  Convention  in  his  interest — they  even  announced 
their  intention  to  oppose  him  if  he  was  nominated.  This  opposition 
proved  fatal  to  Davis,  but  it  did  not  benefit  Adams.  As  Davis's 
strength  declined  Greeley's  increased.  On  the  second  ballot  it  was 
seen  that  the  real  contest  was  between  Adams  and  Greeley,  with 
Greeley  in  the  lead.  On  the  third  and  fourth  ballots  Adams  again 
passed  Greeley,  but  on  the  fifth  Greeley  forged  far  ahead.  On  the 
last  ballot,  the  sixth,  Adams  showed  his  full  strength,  but  as  Greeley 
still  had  the  lead  his  success  was  assured,  and  he  was  declared  by 
formal  vote  the  nominee  of  the  Convention. 

Two  of  the  candidates  before  the  Convention  for  the  Presidency, 
B.  Gratz  Brown,  of  Missouri,  and  Lyman  Trumbull,  of  Illinois,  con- 
tested the  nomination  for  Vice-President,  Mr.  Brown  being  nomi- 
nated on  the  second  ballot.  The  other  candidates  voted  for  on  the 
first  ballot  were  George  \V.  Julian,  of  Indiana;  Gilbert  C.  Walker,  of 
Virginia;  Cassius  M.  Clay,  of  Kentucky;  Jacob  D.  Cox,  of  Ohio;  James 
M.  Scovell,  of  New  Jersey,  and  Thomas  W.  Tipton,  of  Nebraska. 
Brown's  defection  as  a  Republican  began  with  his  support  of  the  policy 
of  President  Johnson  in  the  United  States  Senate.  Under  the  circum- 
stances it  was  impossible  that  he  should  give  strength  to  a  ticket  of 
which  Mr.  Greeley  was  the  head. 

The  interest  in  the  Republican  National  Convention,  wThich  met  at 
Philadelphia  on  the  5th  of  June,  centered  in  the  nomination  of  a  can- 
didate for  Vice-President.  The  opposition  to  the  renomination  of 
President  Grant  had  expended  itself  at  Cincinnati.  But  in  spite  of 
the  certainty  of  the  forecasts  in  regard  to  its  action,  the  Convention 
of  1872  was  one  of  the  most  imposing  in  the  history  of  the  Republican 
party.  Every  delegation  embraced  men  distinguished  in  public  life 
and  in  the  military  service  of  the  Union.  As  many  as  eleven  delegates 
had  been,  or  were  then  or  afterward.  Governors  of  their  States. 
These  were  William  Claflin  and  Alexander  H.  Rice,  of  Massachusetts; 
General  A.  E.  Burnside,  of  Rhode  Island;  General  Joseph  R.  Hawley, 


302  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

of  Connecticut;  General  Rutherford  B.  Hayes,  of  Ohio;  Henry  S.  Lane, 
Oliver  P.Morton,  and  Conrad  Baker,  of  Indiana;  Governor  Culloni  and 
Ilichard  J.  Oglesby,  of  Illinois,  and  Governor  Fairchild,  of  Wiscon- 
sin. Among  the  other  distinguished  delegates  were  General  John  A. 
Logan,  of  Illinois;  General  John  B.  Henderson,  of  Missouri;  William 
A.  Howard,  of  Michigan;  former  Attorney-General  James  Speed,  of 
Kentucky,  and  Amos  T.  Ackerman,  of  Georgia,  Attorney-General  in 
Grant's  Cabinet.  The  New  York  delegation  was  headed  by  the  ven- 
erable Gerrit  Smith,  and  included  William  Orton,  Horace  B.  Claflin, 
General  Stewart  L.  Woodford,  William  E.  Dodge,  and  John  A.  Gris- 
wold.  From  New  Jersey  came  A.  G.  Cattell  and  Cortlandt  Parker. 
In  the  Pennsylvania  delegation  were  Morton  McMichael,  Glenni  W. 
Scofleld,  and  William  H.  Koontz.  From  the  South  were  Judge 
Thomas  Settle,  of  North  Carolina;  James  L,  Orr,  of  South  Carolina, 
and  John  11.  Lynch,  the  colored  orator,  of  Mississippi.  As  a  special 
compliment  to  Philadelphia,  Mr.  McMichael  was  made  temporary 
chairman.  His  address  on  taking  the  chair  was  one  of  those  ora- 
torical masterpieces  for  which  he  was  famous.  "  The  malcontents," 
he  said,  "  who  recently  met  in  Cincinnati  were  without  a  constituency; 
the  Democrats  who  are  soon  to  meet  at  Baltimore  will  be  without  a 
principle.  The  former,  having  no  motive  in  common  but  personal 
disappointment,  attempted  a  fusion  of  repellent  elements,  which  has 
resulted  in  explosion;  the  latter,  degraded  from  the  high  estate  they 
once  held,  propose  an  abandonment  of  their  identity,  which  means 
death." 

The  selection  of  Judge  Settle  for  permanent  president  was  due 
entirely  to  the  hostility  of  the  Washington  correspondents  to  the 
renomination  of  Vice-President  Colfax.  No  public  man  ever  received 
more  favors  from  this  band  of  intelligent  newsgatherers  than  Mr. 
Colfax.  After  his  election  as  Vice-President,  in  1868,  he  alienated 
them  by  a  change  of  manner  that  they  regarded  as  unpardonable. 
They  determined  to  oppose  him  when  he  became  a  candidate  the 
second  time,  and  his  defeat  was  mainly  due  to  their  activity  and  zeal 
against  him.  The  crusade  against  him  wTas  led  by  J.  B.  McCulloch, 
then  the  editor  of  the  St.  Louis  Democrat,  but  the  preliminary  skirmish 
for  the  selection  of  Settle  as  Chairman  of  the  Convention  was  directed 
by  G.  ().  Seilhamer,  the  Washington  correspondent  of  the  New  York 
Herald,  wvho  was  aided  by  a  volunteer  staff  of  young  journalists  hotly 
opposed  to  Colfax.  'The  trend  of  sentiment  at  the  outset  was  in 
favor  of  the  selection  of  Judge  Orr,  of  South  Carolina,  but  Judge 
Settle's  fitness  and  strength  were  depicted  with  such  confidence  and 
earnestness  in  the  news  columns  of  the  Herald  that  the  honor  went  to 
North  Carolina  in  the  belief  that  it  was  in  response  to  a  popular  move- 


THE   GRANT   AND   WILSON   CAMPAIGN,  303 

meiit.  The  episode  from  first  to  last  was  one  of  the  most  curious  in 
the  history  of  American  politics,  and  it  was  the  first  and  last  time  that 
a  band  of  aggressive  newspaper  men,  unknown  to  the  general  public, 
controlled  the  action  of  a  National  Convention. 

After  the  organization  of  the  Convention  on  the  second  day  the 
nomination  of  General  Grant  was  made  without  excitement.  On  the 
roll-call  there  was  no  dissenting  vote.  For  the  Vice^Presidency  there 
was  only  one  ballot,  and  Henry  Wilson  appears  on  the  final  record  of 
the  balloting  as  the  only  candidate  opposed  to  Mr.  ColfaXi  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  Virginia  had  cast  its  22  votes  for  Governor  Lewis,  Tennes- 
see its  26  votes  for  Horace  Maynard,  and  Texas  its  16  votes  for  Gov- 
ernor Davis.  Neither  Wilson  nor  Colfax  had  a  majority.  Before  the 
announcement  of  the  result  the  chairmen  of  the  Virginia  and  Ten- 
nessee delegations  were  asking  recognition  from  the  chair.  If  Vir- 
ginia wras  first  recognized  Wilson's  nomination  was  assured;  if  the 
courtesy  should  be  extended  to  Tennessee  Colfax  would  be  renomi- 
nated.  The  chair  was  in  doubt,  and  Judge  Settle  waited  to  be 
prompted  by  the  correspondent  to  whom  he  was  indebted  for  his 
position.  A  page  was  hastily  dispatched  to  the  stage  with  the  legend 
u  Recognize  Virginia,"  and  then  came  the  recognition,  "  Mr.  Popham, 
of  Virginia."  The  nomination  was  made.  Mr.  Wilson  received  364^ 
votes  and  Mr.  Colfax  321i 

Henry  Wilson  at  the  time  of  his  nomination  had  served  sixteen 
years  in  the  United  States  Senate  as  the  colleague  of  Charles  Sumner. 
He  began  life  as  a  shoemaker,  but  through  his  own  efforts  he  obtained 
a  good  education.  He  took  an  active  interest  in  Massachusetts  poli- 
tics before  his  election  to  the  Senate,  serving  in  the  State  Legislature 
and  the  Constitutional  Convention  of  1853.  Although  without  his  col- 
league's gift  of  invective,  he  was  a  sensible  and  effective  speaker,  and 
he  was  Sunmer's  superior  in  practical  statesmanship.  Never  a  great 
Senator,  he  was  always  a  useful  one.  He  wore  his  heart  on  his  sleeve. 
Even  when  defending  Sumner  he  avoided  giving  offense  to  Sumner's 
enemies,  and  he  was  in  every  way  worthy  of  the  praise  accorded  him 
in  the  last  resolution  of  the  Platform  of  1872. 

For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  Republican  party  the  Plat- 
form sounded  no  aggressive  battle-cry.  As  the  party  of  achievement, 
the  duty  that  now  devolved  upon  it  was  to  preserve  what  had  been 
gained.  The  first  declaration,  accordingly,  was  a  brief  but  nervous 
recital  of  these  achievements.  The  party  was  pledged  to  promote 
complete  liberty  and  exact  equality  in  the  enjoyment  of  all  civil, 
political,  and  public  rights  by  appropriate  Federal  and  State  legisla- 
tion; it  claimed  for  the  recent  Constitutional  Amendments  that  they 
should  be  supported  because  they  were  right;  it  took  strong  ground  in 


304:  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

favor  of  a  reform  of  the  civil  service;  it  favored  protection  for  Ameri- 
can industries,  and  it  recommended  the  repeal  of  the  franking  priv- 
ilege, opposed  further  land  grants  to  corporations,  approved  addi- 
tional pensions,  and  justified  Congress  and  the  President  in  their 
measures  for  the  suppression  of  violent  and  treasonable  organizations 
in  the  South. 

With  the  Republican  ticket  in  the  field  and  commanding  the  en- 
thusiastic approval  of  the  great  mass  of  the  party,  it  still  remained 
for  the  Democratic  Convention  to  act.  The  only  hope  of  defeating 
the  Republicans  lay  in  the  Liberal  Kepublican  revolt;  but  this  revolt 
would  be  powerless  without  Democratic  encouragement  and  support. 
For  a  while  there  was  some  doubt  as  to  what  action  the  Democrats 
would  take.  If  Mr.  Adams,  Judge  Davis,  or  Senator  Trumbull  had 
been  nominated,  as  was  the  expectation  of  the  Democracy,  there 
would  have  been  no  hesitation.  With  Mr.  Greeley  as  the  head  of  the 
ticket,  unexpected  obstacles  were  to  be  encountered.  He  had  stood 
in  the  past  for  every  principle  to  which  the  Democratic  party  was  op 
posed.  After  Henry  Clay  he  was  the  foremost  advocate  of  protection 
for  American  industries.  Slavery  had  had  no  more  stalwart  antag- 
onist. It  is  true  he  had  pursued  a  vacillating  course  during  the  civil 
war,  sometimes  hysterically  urging  "  On  to  Richmond  "  movements, 
and  sometimes  encouraging  embarrassing  peace  negotiations.  Ex- 
cept with  the  few  malcontents  whom  he  followed  rather  than  led,  he 
had  ceased  to  influence  Kepublican  sentiment.  It  happened,  how- 
ever, that  his  nomination  \vas  received  with  more  favor  in  the  South 
than  in  the  North.  His  readiness  to  go  on  Jefferson  Davis's  bail  bond, 
his  earnest  championship  of  universal  amnesty,  and  his  fault-finding 
with  the  methods  of  Keconstruction  and  Restoration  had  secured  him 
the  favor  of  the  old  ruling  element  in  the  Slave  States.  He  was  re- 
garded in  the  South  as  the  wedge  that  would  cleave  +he  Republican 
party  in  the  North.  While  some  Democratic  journals,  like  the  New 
York  World,  declared  that  the  Democracy  could  not  indorse  a  candi- 
date involving  a  stultification  so  humiliating  and  complete,  others, 
like  the  Cincinnati  Enquirer  and  St.  Louis  KcpuMican,  advocated 
Greeley's  indorsement  without  hesitation  or  delay.  The  Tennessee 
Democratic  Convention,  held  only  a  week  after  the  nomination  of 
Greeley  and  Brown,  instructed  its  delegates  to  support  that  ticket 
at  Baltimore.  The  New  York  Democrats  took  the  same  course  a  wreek 
or  two  later.  Before  the  close  of  June  sixteen  other  Democratic  State 
Conventions  had  followed  the  example  of  Tennessee  and  New  York. 
When  the  Democratic  National  Convention  met  on  the  9th  of  July 
there  was  no  longer  any  doubt  in  regard  to  its  action.  The  Baltimore 
Convention  accepted  the  Cincinnati  platform  and  candidates  without 


THE   GRANT   AND   WILSON    CAMPAIGN.  305 

qualification  or  evasion.  Martin  Van  Buren,  who  had  been  the  vic- 
tim of  the  enthusiasm  of  the  "  log  cabin "  canvass  of  1840,  was 
credited  with  saying  that  the  campaign  would  be  either  a  farce  or  a 
tornado.  In  spite  of  the  apparently  irreconcilable  character  of  the 
metaphor,  it  turned  out  to  be  both,  General  Grant's  victory  being  the 
most  complete  in  the  annals  of  American  politics. 

The  Baltimore  Convention  of  1872  was  not  less  distinguished  in  its 
composition  than  that  which  had  adjourned  at  Philadelphia  a  month 
before.  There  were  one  or  more  representative  men  in  every  delega- 
tion. Connecticut  sent  William  H.  Barnum  and  Charles  E.  English; 
New  York,  John  T.  Hoffman,  General  Henry  W.  Slocum,  S.  S.  Cox, 
Clarkson  N.  Potter,  and  John  Kelly;  New  Jersey,  John  P.  Stockton 
and  Theodore  II.  Randolph;  Pennsylvania,  William  A.  Wallace,  Sam- 
uel J.  Randall,  and  Lewis  C.  Cassidy;  Delaware,  Thomas  F.  Bayard: 
[Maryland,  Montgomery  Blair;  Ohio,  Henry  B.  Payne,  and  California, 
William  M.  Gwin.  From  the  South  came  a  great  array  of  Confederate 
strength — Fitz  Hugh  Lee,  Bradley  T.  Johnson,  and  Thomas  S.  Bo- 
cock,  of  Virginia;  Zebulon  B.  Vance,  of  North  Carolina;  Governor 
Aiken,  of  South  Carolina;  Generals  Gordon,  Colquit,  and  Hardeman, 
of  Georgia;  John  H.  Reagan,  of  Texas;  George  G.  Vest,  of  Missouri; 
General  John  S.  Williams,  of  Kentucky,  and  Henry  G.  Davis,  of  West 
Virginia.  The  temporary  chairman  was  Thomas  Jefferson  Randolph, 
a  grandson  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  and  James  R.  Doolittle,  of  Wiscon- 
sin, was  made  permanent  President.  The  proceedings  were  devoid  of 
interest  or  enthusiasm,  but  they  were  not  without  a  grotesque  sig- 
nificance. The  Democratic  party  which  had  championed  slavery, 
promoted  secession  and  rebellion,  and  opposed  the  Constitutional 
Amendments  and  the  enfranchisement  of  the  negro,  had  now  come 
to  lay  its  past  at  the  feet  of  Horace  Greeley  and  to  adopt  him  as  its 
Moses.  This  sacrifice  was  a  stern  necessity,  not  a  pleasant  duty,  and 
it  was  made  with  a  grim  resoluteness  that  was  in  marked  contrast 
with  the  jaunty  confidence  of  1868  and  the  reckless  bravado  of  1864. 
Every  principle  for  which  the  Democracy  had  ever  contended  was 
reversed.  Not  only  was  emancipation,  which  the  Democrats  as  a  body 
had  always  regarded  as  a  wrong,  accepted  by  them,  but  enfranchise- 
ment as  well.  The  Confederate  brigadiers  now  remembered  "  with 
gratitude  the  heroism  and  sacrifices  of  the  soldiers  and  sailors  of  the 
Republic."  They  promised  in  the  same  breath  "  to  mete  out  equal 
and  exact  justice  to  all,  of  whatever  nativity, race,  color,  or  persuasion, 
religious  or  political,"  and  that  no  act  of  the  Democratic  party 
"  should  ever  detract  from  the  justly  earned  fame,  nor  withhold  the 
full  reward  "  of  the  patriotism  of  the  champions  of  the  Union.  It  was 
declared  that  "  the  public  credit  must  be  sacredly  maintained,"  and 


306  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

u  repudiation  in  every  form  and  guise  "  was  heartily  denounced.  The 
cup  was  a  bitter  one,  but  it  was  drunk  standing  and  apparently  with- 
out a  grimace.  Christian  at  the  gate  wras  not  more  humble  than  the 
Pliables  and  Worldly-Wiseinen  of  the  Democracy  in  their  contrition 
before  Good-Will  Greeley.  The  results  were  not  what  was  expected, 
but  the  first  steps  were  taken  in  the  pathway  that  led  from  the  City  of 
Destruction. 

Mr.  Greeley  did  not  receive  the  entire  vote  of  the  Convention,  21 
votes  from  Pennsylvania  being  cast  for  Jeremiah  S.  Black,  15  from 
New  Jersey  and  Delaware  for  James  A.  Bayard,  and  2  for  William 
S.  Groesbeck.  Greeley's  vote  was  686,  and  Brown's  713.  For  Vice- 
President  John  W.  Stevenson,  of  Kentucky,  received  6  votes,  and  13 
were  blank.  There  was,  of  course,  much  Democratic  dissatisfaction 
with  the  action  of  the  Baltimore  Convention,  and  a  "  straight  "  Demo- 
cratic Convention  was  held  at  Louisville  on  the  3d  of  September,  at 
which  Charles  O'Conor,  of  New  York,  was  nominated  for  President, 
and  John  Quincy  Adams,  of  Massachusetts,  for  Vice-President. 
Neither  of  the  candidates  accepted,  but  they  were  voted  for  by  dis- 
contented Democrats  in  nearly  all  the  States. 

The  two  leading  candidates  for  the  Presidency  were  personal  and 
political  antitheses.  Each  was, opposed  by  the  friends  of  the  other  on 
the  ground  of  personal  unfitness.  General  Grant  was  assailed  with 
newspaper  vituperation  as  bitter  as  that  directed  against  General 
Washington  by  Freneau  in  the  National  Gazette  and  Bache  in  the 
Aurora.  The  Greeley  Platform  was  in  itself  a  base  and  disgraceful 
libel.  All  this  naturally  inspired  exaggerated  and  distorted  portrait- 
ures of  Mr.  Greeley's  personal  traits  and  peculiarities.  That  his  dis- 
qualifications were  very  great  could  not  be  gainsaid.  Irresistible  in 
his  own  sphere  of  moral  and  economic  discussion,  he  was  feeble  and 
vacillating  in  the  conduct  of  affairs.  Those  who  knew  him  best,  and 
most  admired  his  ability,  earnestness,  sincerity,  and  courage,  most 
distrusted  his  fitness  for  the  high  office  to  which  he  aspired.  The  cool, 
common  sense  of  the  plain  people  was  quick  to  determine  from  his 
erratic  utterances  and  whimsical  political  projects  in  the  previous 
decade  that  he  lacked  tact,  penetration,  sagacity,  steadfastness  of 
purpose,  and  practical  wisdom.  Against  such  qualities  Grant's  Aveak- 
nesses,  even  when  they  were  conceded,  were  regarded  as  innocuous 
when  contrasted  with  the  dangers  involved  in  the  election  of  Greeley. 
From  Grant  the  country  knew  what  to  expect.  No  man  could  foresee 
the  consequences  of  Greeley's  election.  In  view  of  all  this  it  only 
needs  to  be  said  that  Mr.  Greeley's  nomination  showed  the  inaptness 
of  the  Liberal  Republicans  and  the  desperation  of  the  Democrats. 

The  Republican  canvass  was  opened  in  New  York  by  Roscoe  Conk- 


THE   GRANT   AND   WILSON    CAMPAIGN.  307 

ling,  in  July,  in  a  speech  that  was  a  review  of  all  the  questions  bear- 
ing on  the  campaign,  both  personal  and  political.  Senator  Sherman 
followed  in  Ohio,  and  nearly  all  the  leading  men  of  the  party  were 
heard  in  elaborate  addresses  during  the  months  of  September  and 
October.  But  the  noise  and  apparently  the  enthusiasm  of  the  cam- 
paign were  in  the  camps  of  the  enemy.  The  Greeley  canvass  began 
with  great  confidence  and  vigor.  When  the  campaign  was  well  under 
way  Mr.  Greeley  made  a  speech-making  tour  through  Pennsylvania, 
Ohio,  and  Indiana,  with  a  view  of  influencing  the  October  elections. 
Everywhere  he  was  met  by  great  crowds,  and  no  candidate  ever  be- 
fore addressed  so  many  of  his  political  opponents.  His  speeches  were 
adroit  and  able.  They  were  varied,  forcible,  and,  as  statements  of  his 
case,  effective.  They  were  replete  with  dogmatic  earnestness,  sim- 
plicity, and  clearness  of  expression,  and  the  wide  information  for 
which  he  was  remarkable.  As  intellectual  efforts  they  ranked  with 
the  deliverances  of  Stephen  A.  Douglas  and  Horatio  Seymour  on 
similar  tours.  Some  of  the  Republican  leaders  showed  signs  of  un- 
easiness as  to  the  ultimate  effects  of  his  canvass,  not  so  much  because 
of  the  strength  and  power  of  his  speeches  as  from  the  interest  they 
excited.  It  soon  became  apparent,  however,  that  the  Republican 
masses  could  not  be  seduced  from  their  allegiance  to  the  party,  and 
the  results  of  the  preliminary  State  elections  showed  that  a  cam- 
paign that  had  begun  with  a  concerted  charge  all  along  the  line  of 
battle  would  end  in  a  rout. 

The  first  State  to  vote  after  the  opening  of  the  Presidential  cam- 
paign was  North  Carolina.  The  election  was  held  on  the  first  of 
August.  Great  enthusiasm  was  excited  among  the  friends  of  Mr. 
Greeley  by  the  returns  from  the  eastern  part  of  the  State,  which  were 
received  several  days  in  advance  of  those  from  the  western  and 
mountain  counties,  and  were  adverse  to  the  Republicans.  When  it 
became  known  that  instead  of  being  defeated  the  State  had  given  a 
substantial  Republican  majority,  the  tide  began  to  turn,  and  de- 
pression took  the  place  of  enthusiasm  in  the  Democratic  ranks.  The 
results  in  Maine  and  Vermont,  in  September,  added  to  their  despond- 
ency. The  verdicts  in  the  three  October  States  were  awaited  with 
great  interest.  In  Pennsylvania  the  Republican  candidate  for  Gov- 
ernor was  General  John  F.  Hartranft.  He  was  vigorously  opposed  by 
Colonel  Forney  in  the  Philadelphia  Press,  and  threatened  by  the  fac- 
tional antagonisms  that  alwrays  distracted  the  party  in  that  State. 
In  Ohio  there  was  a  leaven  of  Republican  discontent,  but  as  it  was 
not  a  Gubernatorial  year,  the  opposition  was  not  so  bitter  on  the 
surface  as  in  Pennsylvania  and  Indiana.  In  the  latter  State  Thomas 
A.  Hendricks,  the  leading  Democrat  of  Indiana,  consented  to  become 


308  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

the  Democratic  candidate  for  Governor  against  General  Thomas  M. 
Browne,  a  popular  Republican,  and  his  election  was  anticipated,  if 
not  conceded.  The  results  in  the  three  States  were  a  sure  presage  of 
the  overwhelming  defeat  of  Greeley  and  Brown  in  November.  Hart- 
ranft  carried  Pennsylvania  by  over  35,000.  The  Republican  majority 
in  Ohio  was  more  than  14,000.  Although  he  was  elected  Governor 
of  Indiana  Mr.  Hendricks  had  a  meager  majority  of  1,148.  This  was 
an  assurance  that  Grant  and  Wilson  would  carry  the  State  by  a 
greater  majority  than  Indiana  had  ever  given  to  a  Republican  Presi- 
dential ticket  since  the  election  of  Lincoln  in  I860. 

Since  the  unopposed  election  of  Monroe  in  1820  the  popular  ma- 
jority in  a  Presidential  vote  was  never  so  great  as  Grant  received  in 
1872.  .Grant  received  3,579,132  votes  and  Greeley  2,834,125.  The  vote 
for  ,0'Conor  was  29,489,  and  for  Black,  Prohibitionist,  5,008.  In 
the  great  States  the  Republican  majorities  were  unprecedented. 
Grant  carried  Pennsylvania  by  137,538;  Massachusetts  by  74,212; 
Iowa  by  60,370;  Michigan  by  60^,100;  Illinois  by  57,006;  New  York  by 
53,455;  South  Carolina  by  49,587;  Ohio  by  37,501;  Mississippi  by 
34,887;  North  Carolina  by  24,675,  and  Indiana  by  22,515.  Mr.  Greeley 
carried  none  of  the  Northern  States,  and  only  six  States  in  the  South 
—Georgia,  Kentucky,  Maryland,  Missouri,  Tennessee,  and  Texas.  The 
Electoral  vote  was  286  to  66.  Only  Scott,  in  1852,  and  McClellau,  in 
1864,  received  the  votes  of  fewer  Electors  under  like  conditions.  The 
canvass  had  been  a  farce  and  the  result  was  a  tornado. 

The  Presidential  campaign  of  1872  had  a  melancholy  sequel.  The 
last  days  of  the  canvass  Mr.  Greeley  spent  at  the  bedside  of  his  dying- 
wife.  She  did  not  live  long  enough  to  share  in  the  sorrow  of  the  de- 
feat. Before  the  close  of  the  month  he  was  laid  at  rest  by  her  side. 
His  strong  constitution  and  his  vigorous  intellect  gave  way  at  the 
same  time.  Overtaxed  energies,  bitter  disappointment,  and  a  great 
personal  bereavement  all  contributed  to  an  end  that  was  in  the  nature 
of  a  tragedy. 

In  consequence  of  the  death  of  Mr.  Greeley  the  Electoral  vote  for 
President  of  the  opposition  was  scattered  among  four  candidates, 
Thomas  A.  Hendricks  receiving  42,  B.  Gratz  Brown  18,  Charles  J. 
Jenkins  2,  and  David  Davis  1.  Georgia  cast  three  votes  for  Horace 
Greeley,  but  these  were  not  counted.  The  votes  of  Arkansas  and 
Louisiana  were  also  excluded  from  the  count. 


VI. 

SIX  YEARS  OF  CONGRESS. 

Organization  of  the  Forty-first  Congress — Conspicuous  Members — 
Mr.  Elaine,  Speaker  of  the  House — Repeal  of  the  Tenure  of  Office 
Act — Change  in  the  Government  of  the  District  of  Columbia — 
New  Members  of  the  Forty-second  Congress — The  Salary  Grab — 
Credit  Mobilier  Scandal — The  Exposure  and  Its  Consequences- 
Eminent  Men  Implicated — Senate  and  House  in  the  Forty-third 
Congress — Death  of  Charles  Sumner — Two  Epochs  Contrasted. 


HE  41st  Congress,  the  first  of  the  three  Republican  Con- 
gresses that  were  complete  during  the  two  administrations 
of  President  Grant,  had  a  larger  proportion  of  new  mem- 
bers in  the  House  of  Representatives  than  has  been  usual 
in  our  National  Legislature.  Of  the  two  hundred  and  forty-three 
Representatives  only  ninety-eight  wrere  members  of  the  previous 
House.  In  the  Senate,  also,  there  were  some  radical  changes,  but 
these  were  in  the  character  of  the  few  Senators  wrho  now  appeared 
for  the  first  time  rather  than  in  any  sweeping  change  in  the  composi- 
tion of  the  august  body. 

A  conspicuous  figure  who  took  his  seat  in  the  Senate,  March  4, 1869, 
was  Hannibal  Hamlin,  of  Maine,  who  was  now  a  Senator  for  the 
fourth  time  in  his  long  and  distinguished  career.  He  had  come  back 
for  a  long  service  before  giving  place  to  his  successor.  Mr.  Doolittle, 
of  Wisconsin,  was  succeeded  by  Matthew  H.  Carpenter,  an  eminent 
western  lawyer  and  already  a  picturesque  figure  in  Washington 
society.  From  Missouri  came  Carl  Schurz,  a  German  by  birth,  who 
had  been  conspicuous  in  many  States,  but  deeply  rooted  in  none. 
Tennessee  sent  William  G.  Brownlow — the  famous  "  Parson  Brown- 
low."  None  of  these  three  new  Senators  fitted  the  niche  for  which 
he  had  been  chosen.  Carpenter  was  brilliant,  but  his  success  failed  to 
meet  his  own  anticipations,  or  the  expectations  of  his  friends,  be- 
cause he  attempted  too  much.  In  seeking  to  maintain  his  place  at  the 
bar  while  performing  his  duties  in  the  Senate  he  overtaxed  his 
strength,  impaired  his  usefulness,  and  brought  his  career  to  a  prema- 
ture close.  Schurz  was  entirely  unfitted  to  wear  the  Senatorial  toga. 
His  popularity  had  been  very  great,  but  it  was  already  on  the  wane, 
and  his  unsteadiness  in  politics  soon  dissipated  it  altogether.  Brown- 
low  was  even  more  unsuited  to  the  Senate  than  Schurz.  He  was  ec- 


310  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

centric,  his  health  was  not  good,  and  he  was  too  old  for  the  arena  in 
which  he  found  himself  after  a  long  and  turbulent  career.  Other 
new  Republican  Senators  were  William  A.  Buckingham,  of  Connecti- 
cut; Keuben  E.  Fenton,  of  New  York;  John  Scott,  of  Pennsylvania, 
and  Daniel  D.  Pratt,  of  Indiana.  The  two  most  conspicuous  additions 
to  the  Democratic  side  of  the  Chamber  were  Allen  (_}.  Thurmau,  of 
Ohio,  and  Thomas  F.  Bayard,  of  Delaware.  Mr.  Thurman  had  sat 
in  the  29th  Congress,  and  had  served  a  full  term  on  the  Su- 
preme Bench  of  Ohio.  In  the  Senate  he  took  high  rank  from  the  hour 
that  he  entered  it.  As  a  debater  he  was  strong,  direct,  and  manly, 
and  some  of  the  most  flattering  tributes  to  his  character  and  abilities 
came  from  his  political  opponents.  Among  these  Mr.  Blaine  was 
especially  outspoken  in  his  admiration  of  Mr.  Thurman's  broad  cul- 
ture and  refined  enjoyments — his  taste  for  poetry  and  romance,  his 
love  for  Moliere,  Racine,  and  Balzac,  and  the  pleasure  that  he  took  in 
the  acted  drama  and  the  lyric  stage.  Such  tastes  were  seldom  ac- 
corded him  in  the  popular  apprehension,  while  the  new  Senator  from 
Delaware  was  given  ungrudging  credit  for  generous  culture  and 
eminent  legal  attainments.  Mr.  Bayard  came  of  a  family  distin- 
guished in  public  life,  but  while  he  occupied  as  high  places  as  his 
father  before  him,  he  earned  no  special  distinction  in  the  Senate,  and 
his  public  career  has  been  noteworthy  for  some  remarkable  mistakes. 
Another  new  Senator,  with  an  ancestry  notable  in  American  history, 
was  John  P.  Stockton,  of  New  Jersey,  but  he  made  no  mark  in  a  body 
that  contained  few  great  men.  The  Senators  from  the  South,  whose 
presence  was  marked  by  the  fact  that  they  filled  seats  long  vacant, 
require  no  enumeration  here.  While  not  deserving  the  obloquy  that 
was  heaped  upon  them,  they  were  not  qualified  by  ability  or  training 
for  places  in  the  Senate,  and  they  have  returned  to  the  obscurity  from 
which  they  came.  Only  one  «f  them  will  be  recalled  with  interest, 
Henry  R.  Revels,  of  Mississippi,  and  he  only  because  he  was  the  first 
man  of  color  to  occupy  a  seat  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States. 

A  few  men  of  legislative  experience,  who  were  not  members  of  the 
40th  Congress,  were  in  the  House.  Among  the  most  prominent  of 
these  were  William  A.  \Vheeler  and  S.  S.  Cox,  of  New  York,  the  one  a 
Republican  and  the  other  a  Democrat.  Mr.  Wheeler  had  served  in 
the  37th  Congress  and  Mr.  Cox  had  been  a  Representative  from  Ohio, 
185T-G5.  A  large  contingent  came  to  the  House  through  the  Legisla- 
tures of  their  States,  including  George  F.  Hoar,  of  Massachusetts; 
John  Cessna,  of  Pennsylvania,  and  Eugene  Hale,  of  Maine.  Two  dis- 
tinguished Union  soldiers  were  among  the  new  members — Henry  W. 
Slocum,  Democrat,  of  Brooklyn,  and  James  S.  Negley,  Republican,  of 
Pittsburg.  Noteworthy  among  the  new  members  were  Stephen  W. 


SIX   YEARS   OF   CONGRESS. 


311 


Kellogg,  Connecticut;  Noah  Davis,  New  York;  Washington  Town- 
send,  Pennsylvania;  John  Beatty,  Ohio;  Omer  D.  Conger,  Michigan; 
Horatio  C.  Burchard,  Illinois;  George  W.  McCrary,  Iowa,  and  Gus- 
tavus  A.  Fiukelnburg,  Missouri,  Republicans;  and  Clarkson  N.  Pot- 
ter, New  York,  and  Erastus  Wells,  Missouri,  Democrats.  The  ablest 
men  from  the  South  were  Oliver  H.  Dockery,  of  North  Carolina,  and 
Horace  Maynard,  of  Tennessee.  James  G.  Blaine,  of  Maine,  was 
chosen  Speaker,  receiving  135  votes  to  57  cast  for  Michael  C.  Kerr,  of 
Indiana. 

Mr.  Blaiue  had  served  six  years  in  Congress  before  he  attained  the 
Speakership.  During  his  first  term  in  the  House  he  gave  little  indi- 
cation of  his  genius  for  politics  and  his  qualifications  for  leadership. 
His  first  committee  assignments  were  unimportant,  and  he  did  not 
speak  often.  His  parliamentary  train- 
ing as  Speaker  of  the  Maine  House  of 
Representatives  stood  him  in  good 
stead,  however,  and  few  men  on  the 
floor  were  so  apt  in  objections  and 
points  of  order.  His  associates  in  the 
House  soon  learned  that  he  was  a  man 
of  varied,  extensive,  and  accurate  infor- 
mation, and  he  demonstrated  his  gift 
for  colloquy  in  some  of  his  earliest 
speeches.  In  the  39th  Congress  he 
showed  that  his  strength  was  as  great 
as  his  self-restraint  had  been  in  the  38th, 
and  his  third  term  found  him  an  active 
leader  on  the  floor,  as  well  as  a  recog- 
nized authority  on  all  the  great  ques- 
tions of  the  period.  His  popularity 

kept  pace  with  the  recognition  of  his  abilities  and  the  acknowledg- 
ment of  his  leadership  in  the  40th  Congress;  and  his  election  as 
Speaker  of  the  new  House  was  only  a  fit  tribute  to  his  pre-eminence. 

The  work  of  the  41st  Congress  began  March  4,  1867.  Aside  from 
the  legislation  already  described  in  the  chapters  relating  to  the  public 
credit,  our  diplomatic  relations,  and  reconstruction  and  restoration. 
Congress  found  little  time  for  measures  of  historical  importance. 
The  Tenure  of  Office  Act  was  repealed,  but  not  without  resistance  on 
the  part  of  the  Senate.  In  the  bill  as  it  passed  the  House  the  repeal 
was  absolute.  As  amended  by  the  Senate,  it  was  only  a  suspension 
until  the  next  session  of  Congress.  Mr.  Thurman  aptly  described  this 
amendment  as  a  declaration  that  the  act  is  to  be  enforced  when  it 
will  have  no  practical  effect,  and  not  to  be  enforced  \vhen  it  would 


JAMES    G.    BLAINE. 


312  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

have  practical  effect.  What  a  few  Senators,  under  the  lead  of  Mr. 
Trumbull,  Mr.  Edmunds,  and  Mr.  Schurz  desired  was,  that  the  re- 
moval of  Democrats  appointed  to  office  by  President  Johnson  should 
be  rendered  easy,  but  when  it  was  done  that  the  law  should  remain 
as  before.  It  was  soon  found,  however,  that,  if  the  issue  was  suspen- 
sion or  repeal,  the  act  would  be  repealed.  In  view  of  this  the  proposi- 
tion was  withdrawn,  and  the  bill  recommitted  to  the  Judiciary  Com- 
mittee, which  reported  a  substitute  for  the  existing  law.  This  was 
ingeniously  framed  to  destroy  the  law  and  at  the  same  time  to  main- 
tain a  semblance  of  it  in  a  hypothetical  and  shadowy  provision  for  the 
restoration  of  suspended  officials.  The  House  would  not  consent  to 
this  reserve.  The  whole  subject  was  then  referred  to  a  Conference 
Committee,  and  the  result  was  a  new  enactment  by  which  the  act  was 
practically  extirpated.  In  reporting  the  agreement  of  the  Conference 
Committee  to  the  Senate  Mr.  Trumbull  said:  "  The  suspended  officer 
would  go  back  at  the  end  of  the  session  unless  somebody  else  was  con- 
firmed in  his  place";  but  in  the  House  its  effect  was,  in  the  opinion 
of  Mr.  Bingham,  that  "  no  authority  without  the  consent  of  the  Presi- 
dent can  get  a  suspended  officer  back  into  the  same  office  again."  Mr. 
Binghain's  view  was  the  correct  one,  Mr.  Trumbull's  construction  of 
the  amendment  being  made  merely  to  cover  the  retreat  of  the  Senate. 
From  that  time  to  this  there  has  been  in  effect  no  Tenure  of  Office  Act. 
A  radical  change  in  the  government  of  the  District  of  Columbia 
was  made  just  before  the  close  of  the  41st  Congress.  Up  to  that  time 
local  self-government  had  not  been  attempted  in  any  broad  sense  in 
any  part  of  the  District.  The  two  cities  of  Washington  and  George- 
town had  separate  charters.  The  administration  of  justice  was 
largely  in  the  control  of  the  Levy  Court,  created  by  the  statutes  of 
Maryland.  There  had  been  remarkable  growth  and  expansion  in 
the  Federal  territory  since  it  was  established  in  1790,  but  much  of  it 
was  incongruous  and  anomalous.  Washington  itself  was  a  city  cre- 
ated by  the  Act  of  Congress.  It  was  the  habit  in  Madison's  time  to 
speak  of  it  as  "  the  only  virgin  capital  in  the  world."  But  Georgetown 
was  a  city  of  some  importance  before  the  cornerstone  of  the  first  of 
the  public  buildings  was  laid,  and  when  the  site  of  Washington  was 
only  farm  land.  As  planned  by  Major  L'Enfant,  the  capital  was  a 
city  of  magnificent  distances.  The  plan  was  one  that  required  many 
years  for  its  vindication,  but  such  as  L'Enfant  made  it  it  remains  to- 
day. In  1871  Washington  was  no  longer 

This  embryo  Capital,  where  fancy  sees 
Squares  in  morasses,  obelisks  in  trees 
Which  second-sighted  seers  even  now  adorn 
With  shrines  unbuilt  and  heroes  yet  unborn, 


SIX   YEARS   OF   CONGRESS.  313 

but  it  was  still  an  ill-paved,  ill-lighted,  and  unattractive  city.  This 
condition  made  a  new  government  necessary,  so  that  improvement 
might  become  not  only  practicable,  but  possible.  It  was  accordingly 
determined  to  swreep  away  the  separate  charters  of  the  two  cities  and 
the  old  Levy  Court,  and  to  give  the  District  a  government  assimilating 
with  that  of  the  Territories. 

Under  the  Act  of  1871  the  District  of  Columbia  was  provided  with 
a  Governor,  and  a  Legislative  Assembly  composed  of  a  Council  and 
House  of  Delegates.  The  Governor  and  Council  were  appointed  by 
the  President,  and  the  House  of  Delegates  wras  elected  by  the  people. 
The  Government  of  the  District  was  given  the  power  to  borrow  money 
to  an  amount  equivalent  to  "  five  per  cent,  of  the  assessed  value  of 
property  in  said  District  ";  and  to  borrow  without  charter  limitation, 
"  provided  the  law  authorizing  the  same  shall,  at  a  general  election, 
have  been  submitted  to  the  people,  and  have  received  a  majority  of 
the  votes  cast  for  members  of  the  Legislative  Assembly  at  such 
election." 

This  system  lasted  only  three  years,  but  in  that  time  a  great  trans- 
formation was  effected.  Prom  being  one  of  the  worst-paved  and 
worst-lighted  cities  in  the  country,  Washington  became  one  of  the 
best  in  the  world,  but  there  were,  of  course,  scandals  in  connection 
with  the  cost  of  the  improvements.  These  were  exaggerated  by  the 
newspapers  in  all  parts  of  the  country.  In  consequence  of  the  agita- 
tion the  District  was  divested  of  its  Territorial  privileges,  and  its 
government  placed  in  the  hands  of  three  Commissioners,  but  in  the 
meantime,  as  already  indicated,  under  Governor  Shepherd's  energetic 
direction,  a  revolution  had  been  wrought  in  the  appearance  of  the 
capital. 

In  the  42d  Congress  the  House  of  Representatives  contained  a 
score  of  new  members  who  became  conspicuous  in  that  body,  and 
some  of  them  afterward  in  the  Senate.  Maine  sent  William  P.  Frye 
and  Connecticut  General  Joseph  R.  Hawley,  both  of  whom  are  now 
Senators  from  their  respective  States.  Mr.  Frye  was  then  only  thirty- 
nine  years  old,  but  he  had  served  with  distinction  in  the  Maine  Legis- 
lature, and  he  soon  took  rank  as  one  of  the  ablest  debaters  in  Con- 
gress. General  Hawley  had  previously  won  distinction  in  the  field, 
in  journalism,  and  in  politics.  He  had  been  twice  a  candidate  for 
Governor  of  Connecticut  against  James  E.  English,  in  contests  so 
evenly  matched  that  he  was  elected  in  1866,  and  beaten  by  a  fewr 
hundred  votes  in  1867.  He  was  a  forcible  speaker,  and  at  once  became 
an  active  member  of  the  House.  New  York  sent  Ellis  H.  Roberts, 
who,  like  Hawley,  was  a  prominent  journalist.  Roberts  had  made  the 
Utica  Herald  as  powerful  in  Republican  politics  as  was  the  Hartford 


314  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

C our ant  under  Hawley.  Among1  the  other  new  members  who  were 
afterward  conspicuous  in  the  House  were  H.  Boardman  Smith  and 
Walter  L.  Sessions,  of  New  York;  Alfred  Harnier,  of  Pennsylvania; 
James  Monroe  and  Charles  Foster,  of  Ohio;  Jeremiah  M.  Wilson,  of 
Indiana;  Charles  B.  Farwell,  of  Illinois;  Jeremiah  Rusk  and  Gerry 
W.  Hazelton,  of  Wisconsin;  Mark  H.  Dunnell  and  General  John  T. 
Averill,  of  Minnesota,  and  Isaac  C.  Parker,  of  Missouri.  Mr.  Blaine 
was  again  elected  Speaker,  receiving  120  votes  to  92  votes  cast  for 
George  W.  Morgan,  of  Ohio.  In  the  Senate  there  was  a  number  of 
changes,  including  General  John  A.  Logan,  as  the  successor  of  Rich- 
ard Yates,  Illinois;  Matt  W.  Ransom,  a  former  Confederate  officer,  in 
place  of  Joseph  C.  Abbott,  North  Carolina;  Henry  G.  Davis,  of  Mary- 
land; General  Frank  P.  Blair,  Jr.,  of  Missouri,  and  Powell  Clayton,  of 
Arkansas. 

The  principal  measures  of  the  42d  Congress  were  the  Amnesty  and 
Civil  Rights  bills,  and  the  so-called  Force  bill.  The  tax  and  tariff 
legislation  was  important,  but  as  it  was  only  a  link  in  a  chain  that 
will  require  treatment  in  a  subsequent  chapter,  its  consideration  is 
deferred.  This  Congress  fixed  the  ratio  of  representation  at  131,425. 
Before  it  expired  it  passed  an  act  abolishing  the  franking  privilege. 
The  measure  that  attracted  the  most  publicity  at  the  time  was  the 
Salary  Retroactive  Act,  generally  called  the  "  Salary  Grab."  It  was 
adopted  in  the  form  of  an  amendment  to  the  Legislative,  Executive, 
and  Judicial  Appropriation  bill,  and  provided  that  on  and  after  March 
4,  1873,  the  pay  of  the  President  should  be  |50,000  instead  of  $25,000, 
which  wras  the  salary  at  that  time;  that  of  the  Chief  Justice  of  the 
United  States  $10,500,  and  of  the  Associate  Justices  of  the  Supreme 
Court  $10,000  each;  that  the  Vice-President  and  the  Speaker  of 
the  House  should  receive  $10,000  each;  that  the  Cabinet  officers  should 
receive  $10,000  each,  and  three  of  the  Assistant  Secretaries  $6,500 
each;  that  the  salaries  of  the  Senators,  and  Representatives  and  Dele- 
gates should  be  increased  from  $5,000  to  $7,500  a  year  each;  that  the 
members  of  the  42d  Congress  should  be  paid  at  that  rate,  from  the 
beginning  of  the  Congress,  two  years  before  (thus  giving  to  each  Con- 
gressman, as  "  back-pay,"  $5,000,  but  with  certain  deductions  on 
account  of  mileage),  and  that  $1,200,000  should  be  appropriated  to 
cover  this  "  back-pay." 

The  country  was  furious  when  the  people  learned  that  the  members 
of  Congress  had  voted  themselves  "  back-pay  "  in  an  Appropriation 
bill  in  the  last  hours  of  the  last  session.  Such  was  the  outcry  that 
some  of  the  members  wTho  had  already  drawn  the  increased  pay  re- 
turned it  to  the  Treasury,  while  many  of  those  who  had  not  draAvn  it 
refused  to  accept  it.  As  a  result  of  the  popular  wrath  the  provision 


SIX    YEARS   OF   CONGRESS.  315 

for  the  increased  salaries  was  repealed  within  a  fortnight  after  the 
meeting  of  the  43d  Congress. 

Apart  from  the  popular  wrath  over  the  "  Salary  Grab,"  great  pub- 
lic interest  was  excited  by  the  so-called  Credit  Mobilier  exposures. 
This  so-called  Credit  Mobilier  had  its  origin  in  a  corporation  called 
the  Pennsylvania  Fiscal  Agency,  incorporated  by  the  Pennsylvania 
Legislature  away  back  in  1859.  The  "  Fiscal  Agency,"  according  to 
A.  K.  McClure,  who  was  a  member  at  the  time,  "  began  in  the  vagary 
of  old  Duff  Green,  Tyler's  editor,  who  was  a  visionary  man;  and  the 
Legislature  humored  him  by  the  presentation  of  the  charter  he 
solicited.  He  came  to  Harrisburg  in  the  fall  of  1859,  without  a  cent, 
and  being  a  kindly  old  bore,  whose  name  and  years  were  venerable, 
he  wormed  the  charter  from  the  members  by  personal  solicitation. 
We  all  supposed  that  he  wanted  to  assume  the  consolidation  and  care 
of  our  State  debt,  which  is  divided  up  in  parcels,  and  scattered  around 
in  many  forms.  The  charter  got  from  Duff  Green  into  the  hands  of 
Charles  M.  Hall,  who  sold  it  to  the  Credit  Mobilier  people — some  say 
to  their  proxy,  George  Francis  Train." 

The  incorporators  named  in  the  charter  were  Samuel  J.  Reeves,  a 
wealthy  iron  man,  of  Philadelphia;  Ellis  Lewis,  Chief  Justice  of  Penn- 
sylvania; Garrick  Mallory,  a  distinguished  Philadelphia  lawyer; 
David  R.  Porter,  the  father  of  Horace  Porter;  Jacob  Zeigler,  clerk  of 
the  Pennsylvania  House  of  Representatives;  Horn  R.  Kneas,  a  Phila- 
delphia politician;  Robert  J.  Ross,  a  banker  at  Harrisburg;  W.  T. 
Dougherty,  the  brother  of  another  Harrisburg  banker;  Isaac  Hugus, 
a  Democratic  State  Senator;  C.  M.  Reed,  a  prominent  citizen  of  Erie; 
Asa  Packer,  the  Lehigh  millionaire;  Jesse  Lazear,  a  Congressman 
from  Greene  County;  C.  S.  Kauffman,  a  member  of  the  Legislature 
from  Lancaster  County;  Henry  M.  Fuller,  a  Native  American  Congress- 
man, and  C.  L.  Ward,  an  operator,  of  Towanda.  In  spite  of  these 
eminent  names  the  Fiscal  Agency  was  a  chimera,  and  none  of  the 
incorporators  had  any  connection  with  it  when  the  name  was  changed 
to  the  Credit  Mobilier  of  America  by  the  Pennsylvania  Legislature  in 
1807.  Under  its  new  name  the  corporation  was  used  to  veil  the  op- 
erations of  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad  Ring. 

The  first  exposure  of  the  Credit  Mobilier  was  made  in  the  New 
York  Sun  in  August,  1872.  In  a  letter  to  Henry  S.  McComb,  Oakes 
Ames,  a  member  of  Congress  from  Massachusetts,  said  he  had  "  placed 
some  Credit  Mobilier  stock  in  Congress  where  it  would  do  the  most 
good,"  and  from  a  memorandum  given  by  Ames  to  McComb  it  ap- 
peared that  the  persons  implicated  were  James  G.  Blaine,  of  Maine; 
James  Wr.  Patterson,  of  New  Hampshire;  Henry  Wilson,  Henry  L. 
Dawes,  George  S.  Boutwell,  and  Thomas  P.  Eliot,  of  Massachusetts; 


316  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

James  Brooks,  of  New  York;  William  D.  Kelley  and  Glenni  W.  Sco- 
field,  of  Pennsylvania;  John  A.  Bingbam  and  James  A.  Garfield,  of 
Ohio;  Schuyler  Coif  ax,  of  Indiana,  and  Joseph  S.  Fowler,  of  Tennes- 
see. The  defendants  named  in  a  suit  brought  by  McComb  against  the 
Credit  Mobilier  were  Sidney  Dillon,  John  B.  Alley,  Roland  G.  Hazard, 
Charles  McGhrisky,  Oliver  W.  Barnes,  Thomas  Rowland,  Paul  Pohl, 
Jr.,  Oakes  Ames,  Charles  II .  Neilson,  Thomas  C.  Durant,  James  M.  S. 
Williams,  Benedict  Stewart,  John  Duff,  Charles  M.  Hall,  and  H.  G. 
Fant.  Of  these  McGhriskj^,  Barnes,  Rowland,  Pohl,  and  Neilson  had 
little  or  no  share  in  the  affairs  of  the  Credit  Mobilier.  The  allottment 
of  shares  to  the  thirteen  members  of  Congress  named  above  was  made 
about  1868.  McComb's  suit  wras  brought  to  recover  the  value  of  these 
shares. 

The  original  purpose  of  the  exposure  in  the  Sun  was  political.  It 
was  intended  to  promote  the  canvass  of  Horace  Greeley  for  the  Presi- 
dency. While  it  failed  to  have  any  appreciable  effect  upon  the  cam- 
paign it  proved  a  veritable  bombshell  in  Congress.  Two  separate  in- 
vestigations were  ordered  by  the  House  of  Representatives  and  one 
by  the  Senate,  resulting  in  recommendations  for  the  expulsion  of 
Representatives  Ames  and  Brooks  and  Senator  Patterson.  Ames 
and  Brooks  both  died  soon  afterwrard.  They  were  censured,  not  ex- 
pelled, but  it  was  believed  death  in  both  cases  was  caused  by  the 
shock  of  the  exposure  and  the  strain  incident  to  the  investigation. 
Mr.  Patterson  remained  in  the  Senate  until  the  expiration  of  his 
term,  vainly  seeking,  then  and  afterward,  to  have  his  character  re- 
habilitated. Vice-President  Colfax  went  out  of  office  politically 
ruined  and  mentally  wrecked.  An  effort  was  made  in  the  House  to 
censure  Messrs.  Kelley,  Garfield,  Samuel  Hooper,  and  Speaker  Elaine, 
but  it  was  not  successful.  In  the  course  of  the  investigations  other 
members  of  Congress  besides  those  already  indicated  were  implicated 
by  the  testimony,  including  Mr.  Allison  and  James  Wilson,  of  Iowa. 
The  exculpatory  explanations  of  Henry  Wilson,  Blaine,  Dawes,  Bing- 
ham,  Garfield,  Kelley,  Scofield,  and  one  or  two  others  were  the  sub- 
jects of  much  criticism,  but  the  question  of  their  culpability  was  al- 
lowed to  sink  out  of  sight  as  the  memory  of  the  great  scandal  faded 
from  men's  minds.  As  to  the  actual  culpability  of  the  men  implicated 
it  was  greatly  exaggerated  by  the  newspapers  and  political  agitators. 
For  this  reason  the  scandal  wrought  little  real  injury  to  men  like 
Blaine  and  Garfield  in  later  years,  and  it  is  forgotten,  notwithstand- 
ing it  was  the  absorbing  topic  of  the  last  session  of  the  42d  Congress. 

The  victory  of  1872  was  so  sweeping  in  both  the  Presidential 
elections  and  the  elections  for  members  of  Congress  that  the  Repub- 
licans looked  forward  with  confidence  to  a  long  lease  of  power.  Al- 


SIX   YEARS   OF   CONGRESS.  317 

though  a  political  revolution  was  impending,  it  was  not  foreseen. 
The  Republican  majority  in  the  43d  Congress  was  much  greater  than 
in  its  immediate  predecessor,  and  he  would  have  been  a  bold  prophet 
who  should  have  predicted  that  a  Democratic  House  of  Representa- 
tives wras  to  followr  two  years  later,  writh  a  Democratic  Speaker  in  the 
chair  occupied  by  Mr.  Elaine.  As  it  turned  out,  the  43d  Congress 
marked  the  close  of  the  uninterrupted  Republican  ascendency  that 
had  continued  since  1801. 

With  the  organization  of  the  43d  Congress  a  number  of  new  Sena- 
tors, then  or  afterward  conspicuous  in  public  life,  appeared  in  the 
Senate.  The  most  prominent  of  these  who  w^ere  transferred  from 
the  House  were  William  B.  Allison,  of  Iowra;  Aaron  A.  Sargent,  of 
California,  and  Richard  J.  Oglesby,  of  Illinois.  Kansas  sent  John  J. 
Ingalls,  a  native  of  Massachusetts,  as  the  successor  of  Samuel  C. 
Pomeroy,  and  James  W.  Nye,  of  Nevada,  was  succeeded  by  John  P. 
Jones.  Among  the  Republican  Senators  from  the  South  wTere  Stephen 
W.  Dorsey,  of  Arkansas;  John  J.  Patterson,  of  South  Carolina,  and 
Simon  B.  Conover,  of  Florida.  All  these  were  Northern  men,  Mr. 
Dorsey  belonging  to  Ohio  before  the  war,  and  Mr.  Patterson  and  Mr. 
Conover  being  respectively  natives  of  Pennsylvania  and  New  Jersey. 
General  John  B.  Gordon,  conspicuous  in  the  Confederate  service,  came 
from  Georgia.  With  the  exception  of  Justin  S.  Morrill,  of  Vermont, 
William  B.  Allison,  of  Iowa,  and  William  M.  Stewart,  of  Nevada, 
General  Gordon  is  without  associates  in  the  Senate  who  were  in  that 
body  when  he  entered  it.  He  is  the  oldest  Senator  from  the  South  in 
continuous  service. 

There  were  also  some  conspicuous  changes  in  the  House,  the  new 
Representatives  including  E.  Rockwood  Hoar,  of  Massachusetts;  Ly- 
man  Tremaine,  of  New  York;  Hugh  J.  Jewett,  of  Ohio;  William  R. 
Morrison,  of  Illinois;  John  A.  Kasson,  of  Iowa;  Alexander  H. 
Stephens,  of  Georgia,  and  L.  Q.  C.  Lamar,  of  Mississippi.  Mr.  Hoar 
had  been  Attorney-General  in  President  Grant's  Cabinet.  Among 
those  not  so  widely  known  as  these  were  Thomas  C.  Platt,  Stewart  L. 
Woodford,  and  Henry  J.  Scudder,  of  New  York;  William  WTalter 
Phelps,  New  Jersey;  Lemuel  Todd,  A.  Herr  Smith,  and  Hiester  Cly- 
mer,  of  Pennsylvania;  Eppa  Hunton  and  John  Harris,  of  Virginia; 
Milton  Savior,  Henry  B.  Banning,  Milton  I.  Southard,  and  Richard 
C.  Parsons,  of  Ohio;  Julius  C.  Burrows  and  Jay  A.  Hubbell,  of  Michi- 
gan; Stephen  A.  Hurlbut,  Joseph  G.  Cannon,  and  Greenbury  L.  Fort, 
of  Illinois;  Charles  G.  Williams,  of  Wisconsin;  James  Wilson  and 
James  W.  McDill,  of  Iowa;  Richard  Bland  (Silver  Dollar  Bland),  T. 
T.  Crittenden,  and  Edwin  O.  Stanard,  of  Missouri;  William  A.  Phil- 
lips, of  Kansas,  and  Horace  F.  Page,  of  California.  Of  these  Platt 


318  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

and  Burrows  are  in  the  Senate,  and  Cannon  is  still  a  member  of  the 
House.  As  Minister  to  Spain  in  1897-8  General  Woodford  was 
charged  with  the  delicate  negotiations  preceding  the  rupture  with 
that  country.  General  Hurlbut  was  a  ready  debater  and  earned  dis- 
tinction in  the  House.  Stephen  B.  Elkiiis,  who  entered  Congress  as  a 
delegate  from  New  Mexico  in  his  thirty-second  year,  has  since  been 
prominent  in  Republican  politics  and  public  life.  It  was  the  close  of 
an  epoch,  with  many  of  the  new  men  who  had  been  conspicuous  dur- 
ing the  long  period  of  Republican  ascendency  already  in  their  graves, 
and  others  to  follow  in  rapid  succession,  leaving  only  the  names 
already  indicated  on  the  rolls  of  Congress  in  the  closing  years  of  the 
century. 

Apart  from  the  passage  of  the  Supplementary  Civil  Rights  bill, 
the  political  legislation  of  the  43d  Congress  was  not  important.  "  If 
the  publication  of  my  works  were  completed  and  my  Civil  Rights 
bill  passed,"  Charles  Sumner  said  to  Henry  Wilson  just  before  the 
summons  came,  "  no  visitor  could  enter  the  door  that  would  be  more 
welcome  than  Death."  He  died  June  11, 1874.  "  You  have  come  upon 
the  stage  too  late,  sir,"  Colonel  Benton  said  to  Sumner,  when  the 
young  Massachusetts  Senator  made  his  first  appearance  in  the  Sen- 
ate in  1851.  "  All  our  great  men  have  passed  away.  Mr.  Calhoun 
and  Mr.  Clay  and  Mr.  Webster  are  gone.  Not  only  have  the  great 
men  passed  away,  but  the  great  issues,  too,  raised  from  our  form  of 
government  and  of  deepest  interest  to  its  founders  and  their  imme- 
diate descendants,  have  been  settled,  sir.  The  last  of  these  was  the 
National  Bank,  and  that  has  been  overthrown  forever.  Nothing  is 
left  you,  sir,  but  puny  sectional  questions  and  petty  strifes  about 
slavery  and  fugitive-slave  laws,  involving  no  National  issues."  When 
Benton  thus  spoke  to  the  Free-Soil  Senator  from  Massachusetts  noth- 
ing had,  in  fact,  been  settled,  and  within  ten  years  the  puny  sectional 
strifes  about  slavery  were  to  result  in  a  great  civil  war,  ending  with 
the  destruction  of  slavery.  So  far  were  our  great  men  from  having 
passed  away  that  Webster's  successor  in  the  Senate  will  be  remem- 
bered when  the  great  expounder  of  the  Constitution  is  deposed  from 
the  high  place  he  once  held  in  the  minds  of  men.  It  is  the  era  of  Lin- 
coln, not  that  of  Jackson,  that  has  the  first  place  in  American  his- 
tory. 


DOCUMENTARY  HISTORY  OF  THE  EPOCH. 

REPUBLICAN  PLATFORM  OF  1872. 

The  Republican  party  of  the  United  States,  assembled  in  National 
Convention  in  the  City  of  Philadelphia  on  the  fifth  and  sixth  days  of 
June,  1872,  again  declares  its  faith,  appeals  to  its  history,  and  an- 
nounces its  position  upon  the  questions  before  the  country. 

During  eleven  years  of  supremacy  it  has  accepted  with  grand 
courage  the  solemn  duties  of  the  time.  It  suppressed  a  gigantic 
rebellion,  emancipated  four  millions  of  slaves,  decreed  the  equal  cit- 
izenship of  all,  and  established  universal  suffrage.  Exhibiting  un- 
paralleled magnanimity,  it  criminally  punished  no  man  for  political 
offenses,  and  warmly  welcomed  all  who  proved  loyalty  by  obeying 
the  laws  and  dealing  justly  with  their  neighbors.  It  has  steadily  de- 
creased with  firm  hand  the  resultant  disorders  of  a  great  war,  and 
initiated  a  wise  and  humane  policy  toward  the  Indians.  The  Pacific 
Railroad  and  similar  vast  enterprises  have  been  generously  aided  and 
successfully  conducted,  the  public  lands  freely  given  to  actual  set- 
tlers, immigration  protected  and  encouraged,  and  a  full  acknowledg- 
ment of  the  naturalized  citizen's  rights  secured  from  European  pow- 
ers. A  uniform  national  currency  has  been  provided,  repudiation 
frowned  down,  the  national  credit  sustained  under  the  most  extraor- 
dinary burdens,  and  new  bonds  negotiated  at  lower  rates.  The  rev- 
enues have  been  carefully  collected  and  honestly  applied.  Despite 
annual  large  reductions  of  the  rates  of  taxation,  the  public  debt  has 
been  reduced  during  General  Grant's  Presidency  at  the  rate  of  a 
hundred  millions  a  year.  Great  financial  crises  have  been  avoided, 
and  peace  and  plenty  prevail  throughout  the  land.  Menacing  foreign 
difficulties  have  been  peacefully  and  honorably  composed,  and  the 
honor  and  powrer  of  the  nation  kept  in  high  respect  throughout  the 
world.  This  glorious  record  of  the  past  is  the  party's  best  pledge  for 
the  future.  We  believe  the  people  will  not  intrust  the  government  to 
any  party  or  combination  of  men  composed  chiefly  of  those  who  have 
resisted  every  step  of  this  beneficent  progress. 

2.  The  recent  amendments  to  the  National  Constitution  should  be 
cordially  sustained  because  they  are  right,  not  merely  tolerated  be- 
cause they  are  law,  and  should  be  carried  out  according  to  their  spirit 
by  appropriate  legislation,  the  enforcement  of  which  can  safely  be 
intrusted  only  to  the  party  that  secured  these  amendments. 

3.  Complete  liberty  and  exact  equality  in  the  enjoyment  of  all  civil, 
political,  and  public  rights  should  be  established  and  effectually 


320  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

maintained  throughout  the  Union  by  efficient  and  appropriate  State 
and  Federal  legislation.  Neither  the  law  nor  its  administration 
should  admit  any  discrimination  in  respect  of  citizens  by  reason  of 
race,  creed,  color,  or  previous  condition  of  servitude. 

4.  The  National  Government  should  seek  to  maintain  honorable 
peace  with  all  nations,  protecting  its  citizens  everywhere,  and  sym- 
pathizing with  all  the  peoples  who  strive  for  greater  liberty. 

5.  Any  system  of  the  civil  service  under  which  the  subordinate 
positions  of  the  Government  are  considered  rewards  for  mere  party 
zeal  is  fatally  demoralizing,  and  we  therefore  favor  a  reform  of  the 
system  by  laws  which  shall  abolish  the  evils  of  patronage  and  make 
honesty,  efficiency,  and  fidelity  the  essential  qualifications  for  public 
positions,  without  practically  creating  a  life-tenure  of  office. 

6.  We  are  opposed  to  further  grants  of  the  public  lands  to  corpora- 
tions and  monopolies,  and  demand  that  the  national  domain  be  set 
apart  for  free  homes  for  the  people. 

7.  The  annual  revenue,  after  paying  current  expenditures,   pen- 
sions, and  the  interest  on  the  public  debt,  should  furnish  a  moderate 
balance  for  the  reduction  of  the  principal,  and  that  revenue,  except  so 
much  as  may  be  derived  from  a  tax  upon  tobacco  and  liquors,  should 
be  raised  by  duties  upon  importations,  the  details  of  which  should  be 
so  adjusted  as  to  aid  in  securing  remunerative  wages  to  labor,  and 
promote  the  industries,  prosperity,  and  growth  of  the  whole  country. 

8.  We  hold  in  undying  honor  the  soldiers  and  sailors  whose  valor 
saved  the  Union.    Their  pensions  are  a  sacred  debt  of  the  nation,  and 
the  widow's  and  orphans  of  those  who  died  for  their  country  are  en- 
titled to  the  care  of  a  generous  and  grateful  people.    We  favor  such 
additional  legislation  as  will  extend  the  bounty  of  the  Government 
to  all  soldiers  who  were  honorably  discharged,  and  who,  in  the  line 
of  duty,  became  disabled,  without  regard  to  the  length  of  service  or 
cause  of  such  discharge. 

9.  The  doctrine  of  Great  Britain  and  other  European  powrers  con- 
cerning allegiance — "  Once  a  subject  always  a  subject  "  —having  at 
last,  through  the  efforts  of  the  Republican  party,  been  abandoned, 
and  the  American  idea  of  the  individual  right  to  transfer  allegiance 
having  been  accepted  by  European  nations,  it  is  the  duty  of  our  Gov- 
ernment to  guard  with  jealous  care  the  rights  of  adopted  citizens 
against  the  assumption  of  unauthorized  claims  of  their  former  gov- 
ernments, and  we  urge  continued  careful  encouragement  and  pro- 
tection of  voluntary  immigration. 

10.  The  franking  privilege  ought  to  be  abolished  and  the  way  pre- 
pared for  a  speedy  reduction  in  the  rates  of  postage. 

11.  Among  the  questions  which  press  for  attention  is  that  which 


DOCUMENTARY    HISTORY   OF   THE   EPOCH.  321 

concerns  the  relations  of  capital  and  labor,  and  the  Republican  party 
recognizes  the  duty  of  so  shaping  legislation  as  to  secure  full  protec- 
tion and  the  amplest  field  for  capital,  and  for  labor,  the  creator  of 
capital,  the  largest  opportunities  and  a  just  share  of  the  mutual 
profits  of  these  two  great  servants  of  civilization. 

12.  We  hold  that  Congress  and  the  President  have  only  fulfilled 
an  imperative  duty  in  their  measures  for  the  suppression  of  violent 
and  treasonable  organizations  in  certain  lately  rebellious  regions, 
and  for  the  protection  of  the  ballot-box;  and  therefore  they  are  en- 
titled to  the  thanks  of  the  nation. 

13.  We  denounce  repudiation  of  the  public  debt,  in  any  form  or  dis- 
guise, as  a  national  crime.    We  witness  with  pride  the  reduction  of 
the  principal  of  the  debt,  and  of  the  rates  of  interest  upon  the  balance, 
and  confidently  expect  that  our  excellent  national  currency  will  be 
perfected  by  a  speedy  resumption  of  specie  payment. 

14.  The  Republican  party  is  mindful  of  its  obligations  to  the  loyal 
women  of  America  for  their  noble  devotion  to  the  cause  Of  freedom. 
Their  admission  to  wider  spheres  of  usefulness  is  viewed  with  satis- 
faction; and  the  honest  demand  of  any  class  of  citizens  for  additional 
rights  should  be  treated  with  respectful  consideration. 

15.  We  heartily  approve  the  action  of  Congress  in  extending  am- 
nesty to  those  lately  in  rebellion,  and  rejoice  in  the  growth  of  peace 
and  fraternal  feeling  throughout  the  land. 

16.  The  Republican  party  proposes  to  respect  the  rights  reserved 
by  the  people  to  themselves  as  carefully  as  the  powers  delegated  by 
them  to  the  States  and  to  the  Federal  Government.    It  disapproves 
of  the  resort  to  unconstitutional  laws  for  the  purpose  of  removing 
evils  by  interference  with  the  rights  not  surrendered  by  the  people 
to  either  the  State  or  the  National  Government. 

17.  It  is  the  duty  of  the  general  Government  to  adopt  such  meas- 
ures as  may  tend  to  encourage  and  restore  American  commerce  and 
shipbuilding. 

18.  We  believe  that  the  modest  patriotism,  the  earnest  purpose, 
the  sound  judgment,  the  practical  wisdom,  the  incorruptible  integ- 
rity, and  the  illustrious  services  of  Ulysses  S.  Grant  have  commended 
him  to  the  hearts  of  the  American  people,  and  with  him  at  our  head 
we  start  to-day  upon  a  new  march  to  victory. 

19.  Henry  Wilson,  nominated  for  the  Vice-Presidency,  known  to 
the  whole  land  from  the  early  days  of  the  great  struggle  for  liberty 
as  an  indefatigable  laborer  in  all  campaigns,  an  incorruptible  legis- 
lator, and  representative  man  of  American  institutions,  is  worthy 
to  associate  with  our  great  leader  and  share  the  honors  which  we 
pledge  our  best  efforts  to  bestow  upon  them. 


322  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

LIBERAL  REPUBLICAN  PLATFORM,  1872. 

The  Administration  now  in  power  had  rendered  itself  guilty  of 
wanton  disregard  of  the  laws  of  the  land,  and  of  usurping  powers  not 
granted  by  the  Constitution;  it  has  acted  as  if  the  laws  had  binding 
iorce  only  for  those  who  were  governed,  and  not  for  those  who  govern. 
It  has  thus  struck  a  blow  at  the  fundamental  principles  of  Constitu- 
tional Government  and  the  liberties  of  the  citizen. 

The  President  of  the  United  States  has  openly  used  the  powers  and 
opportunities  of  his  high  office  for  the  promotion  of  personal  ends. 

He  has  kept  notoriously  corrupt  and  unworthy  men  in  places  of 
power  and  responsibility,  to  the  detriment  of  the  public  interest. 

He  has  used  the  public  service  of  the  Government  as  a  machinery  of 
corruption  and  personal  influence,  and  has  interfered  with  tyrannical 
arrogance  in  the  political  affairs  of  States  and  municipalities. 

He  has  rewarded  with  influential  and  lucrative  places  men  who  had 
acquired  his  favor  by  valuable  presents,  thus  stimulating  the  de- 
moralization of  our  political  life  by  his  conspicuous  example. 

He  has  shown  himself  deplorably  unequal  to  the  task  imposed  upon 
him  by  the  necessities  of  the  country,  and  culpably  careless  of  the 
responsibilities  of  his  high  office. 

The  partisans  of  the  Administration,  assuming  to  be  the  Kepublican 
party  and  controlling  its  organization,  have  attempted  to  justify  such 
wrongs  and  palliate  such  abuses  to  the  end  of  maintaining  partisan 
ascendancy. 

They  have  stood  in  the  way  of  necessary  investigations  and  indis- 
pensable reforms,  pretending  that  no  serious  fault  could  be  found 
with  the  present  administration  of  public  affairs,  thus  seeking  to  blind 
the  eyes  of  the  people. 

They  have  kept  alive  the  passions  and  resentments  of  the  late  civil 
war,  to  use  them  for  their  own  advantage;  they  have  resorted  to  ar 
bitrary  measures  in  direct  conflict  with  the  organic  law,  instead  of 
appealing  to  the  better  instincts  and  latent  patriotism  of  the  Southern 
people,  by  restoring  to  them  those  rights  the  enjoyment  of  which  is 
indispensable  to  a  successful  administration  of  their  local  affairs,  and 
would  tend  to  revive  a  patriotic  and  hopeful  national  feeling. 

They  have  degraded  themselves  and  the  name  of  their  party,  once 
justly  entitled  to  the  confidence  of  the  nation,  by  a  base  sycophancy 
to  the  dispenser  of  executive  power  and  patronage,  unworthy  of  Ke- 
publican freemen;  they  have  sought  to  silence  the  voice  of  just 
criticism  and  stifle  the  moral  sense  of  the  people,  and  to  subjugate 
public  opinion  by  tyrannical  party  discipline. 

They  are  striving  to  maintain  themselves  in  authority  for  selfish 


DOCUMENTARY    HISTORY   OF   THE   EPOCH.  323 

ends  by  an  unscrupulous  use  of  the  power  which  rightfully  belongs 
to  the  people,  and  should  be  employed  only  in  the  service  of  the 
country. 

Believing  that  an  organization  thus  led  and  controlled  can  no 
longer  be  of  service  to  the  best  interests  of  the  Republic,  we  have 
resolved  to  make  an  independent  appeal  to  the  sober  judgment,  con- 
science, and  patriotism  of  the  American  people. 

We,  the  Liberal  Republicans  of  the  United  States,  in  National 
Convention  assembled  at  Cincinnati,  proclaim  the  following  prin- 
ciples as  essential  to  just  government: 

1.  We  recognize  the  equality  of  all  men  before  the  law,  and  hold 
that  it  is  the  duty  of  Government,  in  its  dealings  with  the  people,  to 
mete  out  equal  and  exact  justice  to  all,  of  whatever  nativity,  race, 
color,  or  persuasion,  religious  or  political. 

2.  We  pledge  ourselves  to  maintain  the  union  of  these  States,  eman- 
cipation, and  enfranchisement,  and  to  oppose  any  reopening  of  the 
questions    settled    by    the    Thirteenth,    Fourteenth,    and    Fifteenth 
Amendments  of  the  Constitution. 

3.  We  demand  the  immediate  and  absolute  removal  of  all  disabili- 
ties imposed  on  account  of  the  rebellion  which  was  finally  subdued 
seven  years  ago,  believing  that  universal  amnesty  will  result  in  com- 
plete pacification  in  all  sections  of  the  country. 

4.  Local  self-government,  with  impartial  suffrage,  will  guard  the 
rights  of  all  citizens  more  securely  than  any  centralized  power.    The 
public  welfare  requires  the  supremacy  of  the  civil  over  the  military 
authority,  and  the  freedom  of  the  person  under  the  protection  of  the 
habeas  corpus.    We  demand  for  the  individual  the  largest  liberty  con- 
sistent with  public  order,  for  the  State  self-government,  and  for  the 
nation  a  return  to  the  methods  of  peace  and  the  Constitutional  limita- 
tions of  power. 

5.  The  civil  service  of  the  Government  has  become  a  mere  instru- 
ment of  partisan  tyranny  and  personal  ambition,  and  an  object  of 
selfish  greed.    It  is  a  scandal  and  reproach  upon  free  institutions,  and 
breeds  a  demoralization  dangerous  to  the  perpetuity  of  Republican 
Government.     We,  therefore,  regard  a  thorough  reform  of  the  civil 
service  as  one  of  the  most  pressing  necessities  of  the  hour;  that  hon- 
esty, capacity,  and  fidelity  constitute  the  only  valid  claims  to  public 
employment;  that  the  offices  of  the  Government  cease  to  be  a  matter 
of  arbitrary  favoritism  and  patronage,  and  that  public  station  shall 
become  again  a  post  of  honor.    To  this  end  it  is  imperatively  required 
that  no  President  shall  be  a  candidate  for  re-election. 

6.  We  demand  a  system  of  Federal  taxation  which  shall  not  un- 
necessarily interfere  with  the  industry  of  the  people,  and  which  shall 


324  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

provide  the  means  necessary,  to  pay  the  expenses  of  the  Government, 
economically  administered;  the  pensions,  the  interest  on  the  public- 
debt,  and  a  moderate  reduction  annually  of  the  principal  thereof; 
and  recognizing  that  there  are  in  our  midst  honest  but  irreconcilable 
differences  of  opinion  with  regard  to  the  respective  systems  of  pro- 
tection and  free  trade,  we  remit  the  discussions  of  the  subject  to  the 
people  in  their  Congressional  districts,  and  the  decision  of  Congress 
thereon,  wholly  free  from  executive  interference  or  dictation. 

7.  The  public  credit  must  be  sacredly  maintained,  and  we  denounce 
repudiation  in  every  form  and  guise. 

8.  A  speedy  return  to  specie  payments  is  demanded  alike  by  the 
highest  considerations  of  commercial  morality  and  honest  govern- 
ment. 

9.  We  remember  with  gratitude  the  heroism  and  sacrifices  of  the 
soldiers  and  sailors  of  the  Republic,  and  no  act  of  ours  shall  ever  de- 
tract from  their  justly  earned  fame  or  the  full  rewards  of  their 
patriotism. 

10.  We  are  opposed  to  all  further  grants  of  lands  to  railroads  or 
other  corporations.     The  public  domain  should  be  held  sacred  to 
actual  settlers. 

11.  We  hold  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  Government  in  its  intercourse 
with  foreign  nations  to  cultivate  the  friendships  of  peace  by  treating 
with  all  on  fair  and  equal  terms,  regarding  it  alike  dishonorable  to 
demand  what  is  not  right  or  to  submit  to  what  is  wrong. 

12.  For  the  promotion  and  success  of  these  vital  principles  and 
the  support  of  the  candidates  nominated  by  this  Convention,  we  in- 
vite and  cordially  welcome  the  co-operation  of  all  patriotic  citizens 
without  regard  to  previous  political  affiliations. 

SUPPLEMENTARY  CIVIL  RIGHTS  BILL. 

The  first  conviction  under  the  act  was  in  Philadelphia,  in  Febru- 
ary, 1876.  Fields  Cook,  pastor  of  the  Third  Baptist  Colored  Church 
of  Alexandria,  Virginia,  was  refused  sleeping  and  eating  accommo- 
dations at  the  Bingham  House  by  Upton  S.  Newcomer,  one  of  its 
clerks;  and  upon  the  trial  of  the  case,  in  the  United  States  District 
Court,  John  Cadwalader,  Judge,  instructed  the  jury  as  follows: 

"  The  Fourteenth  Amendment  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  makes  all  persons  born  or  naturalized  in  the  United  States, 
and  subject  to  the  jurisdiction  thereof,  citizens  of  the  United  States, 
and  provides  that  no  State  shall  make  or  enforce  any  law  which  shall 
abridge  the  privileges  or  immunities  of  citizens  of  the  United  States; 
nor  shall  any  State  .  .  .  deny  to  any  person  within  its  jurisdic- 
tion the  equal  protection  of  the  laws.  This  amendment  expressly 


DOCUMENTARY   HISTORY   OF  THE   EPOCH.  325 

gives  to  Congress  the  power  to  enforce  it  by  appropriate  legislation. 
An  Act  of  Congress  of  March  1,  1875,  enacts  that  all  persons  within 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  United  States  shall  be  entitled  to  the  full  and 
equal  enjoyment  of  the  accommodations,  advantages,  facilities,  and 
privileges  of  inns,  public  conveyances  on  land  or  water,  theaters  and 
other  places  of  public  amusement,  subject  only  to  the  conditions  and 
limitations  established  by  law,  and  applicable  alike  to  citizens  of 
every  race  and  color,  and  makes  it  a  criminal  offense  to  violate  these 
enactments  by  denying  to  any  citizen,  except  for  reasons  by  law  ap- 
plicable to  citizens  of  every  race  and  color  .  .  .  the  full  enjoy- 
ment of  any  accommodations,  advantages,  facilities,  or  privileges 
enumerated.  As  the  lawr  of  Pennsylvania  had  stood  until  the  22d  of 
March,  1867,  it  was  not  wrongful  for  innkeepers  or  carriers  by  land 
or  water  to  discriminate  against  travelers  of  the  colored  race  to  such 
an  extent  as  to  exclude  them  from  any  part  of  the  inns  or  public  con- 
veyances which  wras  set  apart  for  the  exclusive  accommodation  of 
white  travelers.  The  Legislature  of  Pennsylvania,  by  an  act  of  the  22d 
of  March,  1867,  altered  the  law  in  this  respect  as  to  passengers  on 
railroads.  But  the  law  of  the  State  was  not  changed  as  to  inns  by 
any  act  of  the  State  Legislature.  Therefore,  independently  of  the 
amendment  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  and  of  the  act  of 
Congress  now  in  question,  the  conduct  of  the  defendant  on  the  occa- 
sion in  question  might,  perhaps,  have  been  lawful.  It  is  not  necessary 
to  express  an  opinion  on  this  point,  because  the  decision  of  the  case 
depends  upon  the  effect  of  this  act  of  Congress.  I  am  of  the  opinion 
that  under  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  of  the  Constitution  the  enact- 
ment of  this  law  was  within  the  legislative  power  of  Congress,  and 
that  we  are  bound  to  give  effect  to  the  act  of  Congress  according  to 
its  fair  meaning.  According  to  this  meaning  of  the  act  I  am  of 
opinion  that  if  this  defendant,  being  in  charge  of  the  business  of  re- 
ceiving travelers  in  this  inn,  and  of  providing  necessary  and  proper 
accommodations  for  them  in  it,  refused  such  accommodations  to  the 
witness,  Cook,  then  a  traveler,  by  reason  of  his  color,  the  defendant 
is  guilty  in  manner  and  form  as  he  stands  indicted.  If  the  case  de- 
pended upon  the  unsupported  testimony  of  this  witness  alone,  there 
might  be  some  reason  to  doubt  whether  this  defendant  was  the  person 
in  charge  of  this  part  of  the  business.  But  under  this  head  the  ad- 
ditional testimony  of  Mr.  Annan  seems  to  be  sufficient  to  remove  all 
reasonable  doubt.  If  the  jury  are  convinced  of  the  defendant's  iden- 
tity they  w7ill  consider  whether  any  reasonable  doubt  of  his  conduct 
or  motives  in  refusing  the  accommodations  to  Fields  Cook  can  exist. 
The  case  appears  to  the  Court  to  be  proved;  but  this  question  is  for  the 
jury,  not  for  the  Court.  If  the  jury  have  any  reasonable  doubt,  they 


326  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

should  find  the  defendant  not  guilty;  otherwise  they  will  find  him 
guilty. 

The  jury  brought  in  a  verdict  of  guilty,  March  1, 1876,  and  the  Court 
imposed  a  fine  of 


THE  PERIOD  OF  REACTION. 
I. 

REVOLUTION    IN   THE   HOUSE   OF   REPRESENTATIVES. 

The  Forty-fourth  Congress — Michael  C.  Kerr,  Speaker — Noteworthy 
Changes  in  Both  Houses — Failure  of  the  Amnesty  Bill — Andrew 
Johnson  Again  in  the  Senate — New  Members  in  the  Forty-fifth 
Congress — Failure  of  the  Army  Appropriation  Bill  in  the  Forty- 
fourth  Congress — The  Use  of  Troops  at  the  Polls — Coinage  of 
the  Silver  Dollar — Organization  of  the  Forty-sixth  Congress — 
Changes  in  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives — A  Power- 
less Democratic  Majority. 

HE  period  of  reaction  set  in  with  a  Republican  reverse  in 
1874  as  marked  as  the  Republican  victory  in  1872.  There 
were  premonitions  of  the  coming  political  revolution  in 
1873,  when  William  Allen  was  elected  Governor  of  Ohio 
over  Edwin  F.  Noyes,  the  Republican  candidate,  and  when  General 
Dix  was  beaten  for  Governor  of  New  York  by  Samuel  J.  Tilden.  But 
the  completeness  of  the  reaction  was  not  fully  appreciated  until  the 
44th  Congress  met,  March  6,  1875.  The  House  of  Representatives 
was  organized  by  the  election  of  Michael  C.  Kerr,  of  Indiana,  as 
Speaker,  by  173  votes,  to  106  for  Mr.  Blaine,  a  result  that  was  a  com- 
plete reverse  of  the  relative  strength  of  parties  in  the  preceding  Con- 
gress. The  ascendency  thus  gained  in  the  House  by  the  Democrats 
was  maintained  without  interruption  for  six  years;  and  in  the  46th 
Congress  the  Democratic  party,  for  the  first  time  since  1856,  was  in 
control  of  both  Houses  of  Congress.  Mr.  Kerr  had  served  ten  years 
in  the  House  when  he  was  chosen  Speaker.  He  was  an  able  man,  but 
one  who  never  cared  to  make  a  display  of  his  strength.  His  health 
at  the  time  of  his  election  was  much  impaired,  and  it  was  not  often 
that  he  wras  able  to  occupy  the  chair.  His  death  occurred  August  19, 
1870,  during  the  recess.  His  successor  in  the  Speakership  was  Samuel 
J.  Randall,  of  Pennsylvania,  who  was  afterward  elected  Speaker  of 
the  45th  and  46th  Congresses.  Mr.  Randall  had  entered  the  38th  Con- 
gress, and  served  continuously  during  the  intervening  thirteen  years. 
He  was  a  strong  partisan,  but  a  fairminded  presiding  officer,  and  he 
was  as  popular  writh  the  House  as  either  of  his  predecessors. 

In  a  Congress  that  contained  so  many  new  men  there  was  a  number 
who  had  already  attained,  or  were  destined  to  attain,  prominence  in 


328  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

Democratic  leadership.  In  the  Senate  there  were  altogether  ten  new 
Democratic  Senators  who  were  successors  of  Kepublicans:  William 
W.  Eaton,  of  Connecticut;  Francis  Kernan,  of  New  York;  William  A. 
Wallace,  of  Pennsylvania;  Joseph  E.  McDonald,  of  Indiana;  Francis 
M.  Cockrell,  of  Missouri;  Allen  T.  Caperton,  of  West  Virginia;  Robert 
E.  Withers,  of  Virginia;  Charles  W.  Jones,  of  Florida;  Samuel  B. 
Maxey,  of  Texas,  and  Andrew  Johnson,  of  Tennessee.  William  Pink- 
ney  Whyte  came  from  Maryland.  In  the  House  the  Democratic  mem- 
bership was  equally  noteworthy.  Among  those  from  the  North  were : 
Frank  Jones,  of  New  Hampshire;  Charles  P.  Thompson  and  Chester 
W.  Chapin,  of  Massachusetts;  Abram  S.  Hewitt  and  Scott  Lord,  of 
New  York;  George  A.  Jenks  and  WTilliam  S.  Stenger,  of  Pennsylvania; 
John  A.  McMahon,  of  Ohio;  Alpheus  S.  WTilliams,  of  Michigan;  Will- 
iam Pitt  Lynde,  of  Wisconsin;  and  Carter  H.  Harrison,  William  M. 
Springer,  William  A.  J.  Sparks,  and  John  V.  LeMoyne,  of  Illinois. 
Three  Representatives  from  the  South  had  served  in  Congress  before 
the  war:  Alfred  M.  Scales,  of  North  Carolina,  1857-9;  John  I).  C.  At- 
kins, of  Tennessee,  1857-9;  and  Otho  R.  Singleton,  of  Mississippi,  1853- 
61.  Thomas  L.  Jones,  of  Kentucky,  had  also  served  in  the  House. 
The  new  Southern  representative  Democrats  wrere:  J.  Randolph 
Tucker  and  John  Goode,  Jr.,  of  Virginia;  Charles  R.  Faulkner,  of  West 
Virginia;  Joseph  C.  S.  Blackburn  and  Milton  J.  Dunham,  of  Ken- 
tucky; Washington  C.  Whitthorne,  of  Tennessee;  Benjamin  H.  Hill, 
of  Georgia;  Charles  E.  Hooker,  of  Mississippi;  Randall  E.  Gibson  and 
E.  John  Ellis,  of  Louisiana,  and  John  H.  Reagan,  of  Texas.  Of  these, 
Tucker  had  been  Attorney-General  of  his  State,  Goode  a  member  of 
the  Confederate  Congress,  Faulkner  a  conspicuous  Confederate,  Hill 
a  member  of  the  Confederate  Senate,  and  Reagan  Confederate  Post- 
master-General. These  men  were  typical  of  the  Democratic  repre- 
sentation from  the  South  during  the  rest  of  the  century. 

Among  the  Republicans  who  entered  Congress  for  the  first  time  in 
1875  were:  Henry  W.  Blair,  of  New  Hampshire;  Charles  H.  Joyce,  of 
Vermont;  William  W.  Crapo,  Julius  H.  Seelye,  and  Henry  L.  Pierce,  of 
Massachusetts;  Martin  I.  Townsend,  Elbridge  G.  Lapham,  Lyman 
K.  Bass  and  Simeon  B.  Chittenden,  of  New  York;  Winthrop  W.  Ketch- 
urn,  of  Pennsylvania,  and  Gen.  Thomas  J.  Henderson,  of  Illinois.  In 
the  Senate  were  Gen.  A.  E.  Burnside,  of  Rhode  Island;  Henry  L. 
Dawes,  of  Massachusetts;  Isaac  P.  Christiancy  of  Michigan;  Angus 
Cameron,  of  Wisconsin;  Samuel  J.  R.  McMillan,  of  Minnesota,  and 
Newton  Booth,  of  California.  Of  the  men  conspicuous  in  Recon- 
struction very  few  remained. 

The  work  of  the  44th  Congress  was  almost  wholly  devoted  to 
political  issues  and  to  the  questions  growing  out  of  the  disputed 


REVOLUTION   IN   THE   HOUSE   OF   REPRESENTATIVES.          329 

Presidential  election  of  1876.  An  abortive  effort  was  made  to  pass 
a  final  Amnesty  Bill,  but  it  failed  to  receive  the  necessary  two-thirds 
vote  in  the  House,  because  the  Republicans  insisted  that  Jefferson 
Davis  should  be  excepted.  This  was  steadily  refused.  "  If  Mr.  Davis 
thought  that  he  was  ungenerously  treated  by  the  Republicans,"  Mr. 
Elaine  wrote,  "  he  must  have  found  ample  compensation  in  the  con- 
duct of  both  Southern  and  Northern  Democrats,  who  kept  seven 
hundred  prominent  supporters  of  the  rebellion  under  disability  for  the 
simple  and  only  reason  that  the  ex-President  of  the  Confederacy  could 
not  share  in  the  clemency." 

An  event  associated  with  the  history  of  the  44th  Congress  was  the 
death  of  ex-President  Johnson,  at  his  home  in  East  Tennessee,  July 
31, 1875.  In  the  few  weeks  that  the  Senate  was  in  session  during  his 
brief  service,  he  made  a  speech  assailing  President  Grant,  whom  he  ac- 
cused of  seeking  a  third  term,  and  charged  with  endangering  the 
liberties  of  the  country.  After  six  years  spent  in  retirement,  Mr. 
Johnson  still  cherished  the  animosities  of  the  period  of  Reconstruc- 
tion, and,  judging  from  his  speech,  his  only  motive  in  returning  to 
the  Senate  was  to  find  an  arena  in  wrhich  he  could  renew  the  contro- 
versies of  his  unfortunate  administration.  After  his  death  the  mem- 
ory of  these  animosities  and  controversies  quickly  faded  out  of  the 
minds  of  men. 

With  many  new  members,  the  45th  Congress  was  scarcely  dis- 
tinguished politically  from  its  immediate  predecessor.  In  the  Senate 
were  James  G.  Elaine,  of  Maine;  Edward  H.  Rollins,  of  New  Hamp- 
shire; George  F.  Hoar,  of  Massachusetts;  Samuel  J.  Kirkwood,  of 
Iowa;  Preston  B.  Plumb,  of  Kansas,  and  Alvin  Saunders,  of  Nebraska, 
Republicans,  and  John  R.  McPherson,  of  New  Jersey;  David  Davis,  of 
Illinois;  James  B.  Beck,  of  Kentucky;  A.  H.  Garland,  of  Arkansas; 
Isharu  G.  Harris,  of  Tennessee;  Benjamin  H.  Hill,  of  Georgia;  Richard 
Coke,  of  Texas,  and  Lafayette  Grover,  of  Oregon,  Democrats.  John 
Sherman  entered  President  Hayes'  Cabinet,  and  was  succeeded  by 
Stanley  Matthews;  General  Cameron,  of  Pennsylvania,  resigned  in 
1877,  and  was  succeeded  by  his  son,  J.  Donald  Cameron.  Oliver  P. 
Morton,  of  Indiana,  died  November  1,  1877,  and  was  succeeded  by 
Daniel  W.  Voorhees,  Democrat.  Among  the  new  members  of  the 
House  were:  Thomas  B.  Reed,  of  Maine;  George  D.  Robinson,  George 
B.  Loring,  William  Claflin,  and  William  W.  Rice,  of  Massachusetts; 
John  T.  Wait,  of  Connecticut;  Frank  Hiscock,  John  H.  Starin,  George 
A.  Bagley,  A.  B.  James,  and  George  W.  Patterson,  of  New  York;  Rus- 
sell Errett,  Thomas  M.  Bayne,  John  I.  Mitchell,  and  Gen.  Harry 
White,  of  Pennsylvania;  Gen.  Jacob  D.  Cox,  Joseph  W.  Keifer,  Gen. 
Thomas  Ewing,  and  William  McKinley,  of  Ohio;  Thomas  M.  Browne 


330  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

and  William  M.  Baker,  of  Indiana,  and  Horace  Davis,  of  California. 
Of  these  new  men  William  McKinley  was  destined  to  take  the  highest 
rank. 

The  new  House  of  Representatives  was  organized  October  15,  1877, 
a  special  session  of  Congress  being  rendered  necessary  by  the  failure 
of  the  Army  Appropriation  bill  at  the  preceding  session.  Mr.  Randall 
received  149  votes  for  Speaker  to  132  for  James  A.  Garfield.  From 
July  until  October,  1877,  the  army  was  maintained  without  lawful  ap- 
propriations. The  cause  of  this  condition  of  affairs  was  the  deter- 
mination of  the  Democrats  in  the  44th  Congress  that  a  provision 
should  be  inserted  in  the  bill  for  the  support  of  the  army  forbidding  its 
use  in  maintaining  what  was  known  as  the  Packard  State  govern- 
ment in  Louisiana.  The  Senate  refused  to  concur  in  this  amendment, 
and  the  bill  was  lost.  The  whole  question  was  reopened  as  soon  as 
the  45th  Congress  was  organized,  and  it  was  the  chief  subject  of  con- 
troversy during  the  first  two  years  of  President  Hayes'  administra- 
tion. Although  Packard's  claim  to  be  Governor  of  Louisiana  was  bet- 
ter than  that  upon  which  General  Hayes  was  awarded  the  electoral 
vote  of  the  State,  the  President  was  determined  from  the  outset,  after 
his  inauguration,  to  disregard  the  State  elections  in  the  three  States 
on  which  his  own  title  depended.  The  Senate  stood  firm,  notwith- 
standing the  President's  surrender,  and  the  amendment  again  failed 
on  the  eve  of  the  final  adjournment,  March  3,  1879.  The  necessary 
appropriations  were  again  withheld,  notwithstanding  the  course  of 
the  Executive  in  preventing  the  use  of  the  troops  in  protecting  col- 
ored citizens  at  the  polls  in  the  Southern  States.  The  result  of  this 
policy  of  President  Hayes  was  the  practical  disfranchisement  of  the 
colored  voters  of  the  South,  and  the  surrender  of  every  Southern 
State  to  the  Democratic  party.  It  wTas  a  policy  that  gave  great  um- 
brage to  Republicans  everywhere,  and  assured  a  third  triumph  for 
the  Democrats  in  the  elections  for  members  of  Congress  in  1878.  As 
the  Democrats  had  a  temporary  majority  in  the  Senate  in  the  40th 
Congress,  they  finally  succeeded  in  forcing  the  repeal  of  the  kiws  pro- 
viding protection  for  all  citizens  in  the  South. 

The  distinctive  measure  of  the  45th  Congress  was  the  passage  of  the 
Act  for  the  coinage  of  the  silver  dollar.  The  question  at  issue  was 
practically  the  same  that  was  decided  in  the  election  of  President 
McKinley  in  1890,  but  parties  had  not  yet  divided  on  the  use  or  disuse 
of  a  double  standard.  All  the  operations  of  the  Government,  as  an 
essential  element  in  the  resumption  of  specie  payments,  were  con- 
ducted on  a  gold  basis.  Mr.  Sherman,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
in  his  first  annual  report  in  1877,  said  that  in  the  work  of  refunding, 
he  had  informed  his  associates  in  an  official  letter  that  "  as  the  Gov- 


REVOLUTION    IN   THE    HOUSE   OF   REPRESENTATIVES.          331 

eminent  exacts  in  payment  for  bonds  their  full  face  in  coin,  it  is  not 
anticipated  that  any  future  legislation  of  Congress  or  any  action  of 
any  Department  of  the  Government  will  sanction  or  tolerate  the  re- 
demption of  the  principal  of  these  bonds,  or  the  payments  of  the  in- 
terest thereon  in  coin  of  less  value  than  the  coin  authorized  by  law  at 
the  time  of  their  issue — being  gold  coin."  He  earnestly  urged  Con- 
gress to  give  its  sanction  to  this  assurance.  The  President,  in  his  mes- 
sage, also  declared  that  if  the  United  States  had  the  right  to  pay  its 
bonds  in  silver  coin  the  benefit  would  be  overbalanced  by  the  injurious 
effects  of  such  payments  against  the  honest  convictions  of  the  public 
creditors.  In  direct  hostility  to  these  recommendations,  Mr.  Matthews, 
Mr.  Sherman's  successor  in  the  Senate,  moved  a  concurrent  resolution, 
declaring  that  "  all  bonds  of  the  United  States  are  payable  in  silver 
dollars  of  412^  grains,  and  that  to  restore  such  dollars  as  a  full  legal 
tender  for  that  purpose  is  not  a  violation  of  public  faith  or  the  rights 
of  the  creditor."  A  motion  to  refer  the  resolution  to  the  Committee 
on  the  Judiciary  was  defeated — ayes,  19;  nays,  31.  It  was  kept  before 
the  Senate  for  immediate  consideration  and  discussion.  Thirty-four 
Senators  made  elaborately  prepared  speeches  on  the  subject,  and  the 
resolution  was  finally  adopted  without  amendment  as  a  declaration  of 
the  financial  creed  of  Congress.  In  the  meantime  a  bill  for  the  free 
coinage  of  silver  dollars  of  412|  grains,  to  be  full  legal  tender-  for  all 
debts,  public  and  private,  had  been  hastily  passed  by  the  House,  and 
was  pending  in  the  Senate.  This  was  the  famous  Bland  Silver  Dollar 
bill.  There  was  another  long  debate  by  the  senatorial  financiers, 
after  which  the  measure  was  adopted  by  the  two  Houses,  with  amend- 
ments limiting  the  coinage  to  not  less  than  $2,000,000  or  more  than 
$4,000,000  per  month,  all  seigniorage  to  accrue  to  the  Treasury,  and 
authorizing  the  President  to  propose  an  international  conference  for 
the  adoption  of  a  common  ratio  for  gold  and  silver.  The  bill  was 
vetoed  by  President  Hayes,  but  was  passed  over  the  veto.  This  was 
the  beginning  of  the  silver  question,  the  history  of  which  must  be 
told  in  one  of  the  closing  chapters  of  this  volume. 

As  the  last  session  of  the  45th  Congress  closed  without  making 
provision  for  the  expenses  of  the  Legislative,  Executive,  and  Judicial 
departments  of  the  Government,  or  for  the  support  of  the  army,  a 
called  session  of  the  46th  Congress  was  necessary.  The  extra  session 
began  March  18, 1879.  Mr.  Randall  was  again  elected  Speaker  of  the 
House,  receiving  143  votes,  to  125  for  General  Garfield.  Thirteen 
members,  elected  as  Greenbackers,  voted  for  Hendrick  B.  Wright,  of 
Pennsylvania.  Mr.  Wright  had  served  in  the  33d,  the  37th,  and  the 
45th  Congresses  as  a  Democrat.  It  was  not  until  his  election  to  the 
4Cth  Congress  that  he  was  classed  as  a  Greenbacker.  His  political 


332  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

associates  in  the  House  were  William  M.  Lowe,  of  Alabama;  Adlai  E. 
Stevenson,  afterward  Vice-President,  and  Albert  P.  Forsytlie,  of  Il- 
linois; Gilbert  De  la  Matyr,  of  Indiana;  James  B.  Weaver  and  Edward 
H.  Gillette,  of  Iowa;  George  W.  Ladd  and  Thompson  H.  Murch,  of 
Maine;  Nicholas  Ford,  of  Missouri;  Seth  H.  Yocum,  of  Pennsylvania, 
and  George  WT.  Jones,  of  Texas.  The  Greenback-Labor  party  had 
been  a  factor  of  considerable  importance  in  politics  in  alliance  with 
the  Democrats  since  1873,  but  after  1880  its  influence  waned. 

Among  the  prominent  Republicans  who  entered  the  House  at  this 
time  were:  Levi  P.  Morton,  Richard  Crowley,  and  Warner  Miller,  of 
New  York;  George  M.  Robeson,  of  New  Jersey;  Henry  H.  Bingham,  of 
Pennsylvania;  Thomas  L.  Young,  of  Ohio;  Roswell  G.  Horr  and  John 
S.  Newberry,  of  Michigan,  and  William  D.  WTashburn,  of  Minnesota. 
Washburn  was  the  fourth  of  seven  brothers  to  obtain  a  seat  in  the 
House  of  Representatives.  The  only  Republicans  from  the  South 
were  Milton  G.  Urner,  of  Maryland;  Joseph  Jorgenson,  of  Virginia; 
Daniel  L.  Russell,  of  North  Carolina,  and  Leonidas  C.  Houck,  of  Ten- 
nessee. Ohio  sent  two  noteworthy  Democrats — Frank  H.  Hurd,  an 
earnest  advocate  of  free  trade,  and  A.  J.  Warner,  an  equally  earnest 
advocate  of  free  silver.  In  the  Senate  were  Henry  W.  Blair,  of  New 
Hampshire,  and  Orville  H.  Platt,  of  Connecticut,  the  latter  a  Repub- 
lican, who  succeeded  William  H.  Barnum,  Democrat.  After  an  ab- 
sence of  two  years,  General  Logan  was  again  in  the  Senate  from  Illi- 
nois as  the  successor  of  Mr.  Oglesby.  Mr.  Chandler,  of  Michigan,  after 
a  brief  experience  in  the  Cabinet,  wras  also  back  in  the  seat  he  had 
occupied  for  many  years.  His  death  occurred  before  the  close  of  the 
year.  On  the  Democratic  side  of  the  chamber  the  most  conspicuous 
figure  was  George  H.  Pendleton,  of  Ohio.  As  the  leader  of  the  mi- 
nority in  the  House  during  the  war,  he  had  the  advantage  of  a  long 
legislative  experience.  The  Southern  States  were  now  represented  al- 
most entirely  by  Democrats,  William  Pitt  Kellogg,  of  Louisiana,  and 
Blanche  K.  Bruce,  of  Mississippi,  being  the  only  remaining  Repub- 
licans. The  new  Senators  from  the  South  included:  Zebulon  B. 
Vance,  of  North  Carolina;  John  S.  Williams,  of  Kentucky,  and  George 
G.  Vest,  of  Missouri.  It  was  said  at  the  time  that  the  rebel  brigadiers 
were  again  in  the  saddle. 

Although  the  Democrats  had  a  majority  in  both  houses  of  Con- 
gress for  the  first  time  in  almost  a  quarter  of  a  century — six  in  the 
Senate,  and,  with  their  Greenback  allies,  thirty  in  the  House — they 
were  powerless  under  a  Republican  President,  except  in  the  matter 
of  the  use  of  troops  at  the  polls,  in  which  President  Hayes  was  in  ac- 
cord with  Southern  sentiment.  In  spite  of  his  surrender  on  wrhat 
was  the  vital  question  with  the  South,  the  "  Fraudulent  President," 


REVOLUTION   IN   THE    HOUSE   OF   REPRESENTATIVES.          333 

as  the  Democracy  persisted  in  calling  General  Hayes  throughout  his 
administration  failed  to  conciliate  the  vindictive  feeling  which  at- 
tended his  peculiar  accession  to  power.  The  revolution  in  the  House 
of  Representatives  in  1874,  and  the  subsequent  supremacy  of  the  Dem- 
ocrats in  Congress,  have  delayed  the  history  of  a  series  of  events  that 
were  the  most  potent  causes  in  giving  vitality  to  the  reaction,  the  ef- 
fects of  which  continued  to  be  felt  for  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century. 


II. 

THE    HAYES   AND   WHEELER   CAMPAIGN. 

Incipient  Movement  for  a  Third  Term  for  General  Grant — Possible 
Republican  Candidates  for  President — Mr.  Elaine — The  Mulligan 
Letters — Senator  Morton — Secretary  Bristow  and  the  Whisky 
King — Organization  of  the  Republican  National  Convention  of 
187(5 — The  Platform — Nominations  and  the  Ballots — Rutherford 
B.  Hayes  Nominated — William  A.  Wheeler  for  Vice-President — 
Rise  of  Samuel  J.  Tilden — His  Methods  and  Nomination — The 
Campaign — Doubtful  Results  of  the  Elections. 


N  1876,  for  the  first  time  since  I860,  the  nomination  of  a 
Presidential  candidate  by  the  Republicans  was  not  a  fore- 
gone conclusion  in  advance  of  the  meeting  of  the  nominat- 
ing body.  There  was  some  talk  in  the  sensational  news- 
papers of  giving  General  Grant  a  third  term,  but  apparently  these 
journals  only  suggested  it  so  that  they  might  vehemently  oppose  it. 
There  certainly  was  no  organized  movement  with  this  object  in  view. 
It  continued  to  be  persistently  asserted,  however,  that  General  Grant 
desired  to  be  again  a  candidate,  and  the  Republicans  of  Pennsylvania 
allowed  themselves  to  become  so  fully  convinced  of  the  allegation  that 
in  1875  the  Republican  State  Convention  adopted  a  resolution  declar- 
ing unalterable  opposition  to  the  election  to  the  Presidency  of  any 
person  for  a  third  term.  This  called  out  a  letter  from  General  Grant 
to  General  Harry  White,  the  President  of  the  Pennsylvania  Con- 
vention, in  which  he  said  :  "  Now  for  the  third  term.  I  do  not  want  it, 
any  more  than  I  did  the  first  ";  but  because,  he  added,  that  the  people 
were  not  restricted  to  two  terms  by  the  Constitution,  that  the  time 
might  come  when  it  would  be  unfortunate  to  make  a  change  at  the 
end  of  eight  years,  and  that  he  "  would  not  accept  a  nomination  if  it 
were  tendered,  unless  it  should  come  under  such  circumstances  as  to 
make  it  an  imperative  duty — circumstances  not  likely  to  rise."  it 
was  boldly  proclaimed  that  these  phrases  meant  that  it  was  an  imper- 
ative duty  for  the  Republicans  again  to  nominate  Grant,  and  for 
Grant  to  accept.  How  utterly  baseless  was  the  story  of  Grant's  can- 
didature was  shown  by  a  vote  of  the  House  of  Representatives  in  De- 
cember, 1875.  An  Illinois  Democrat  offered  a  resolution,  "  that,  in 
the  opinion  of  this  House,  the  precedent  established  by  Washington 
and  other  Presidents  of  the  United  States,  in  retiring  from  the  Presi- 
dential office  after  their  second  term,  has  become  by  universal  con- 


THE   HAYES   AND   WHEELER   CAMPAIGN.  335 

curreuce  a  part  of  our  Republican  system  of  government,  and  that 
any  departure  from  this  time-honored  custom  would  be  unwise,  un- 
patriotic, and  fraught  with  peril  to  our  institutions."  It  was  adopted 
by  a  vote  of  234  to  18.  This  ended  all  talk  of  a  third  term  for  the 
time  being,  and  the  people  began  seriously  to  think  of  a  candidate 
for  a  first  term. 

The  second  nomination  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  the  two  nominations 
of  General  Grant  being  practically  unopposed,  had  opened  the  way 
for  an  entirely  new  set  of  Republican  candidates  for  the  Presidency, 
after  sixteen  years  of  Republican  supremacy.  The  great  leaders  of 
the  party  in  the  formative  and  war  periods  were  either  dead  or  in  re- 
tirement. It  happened,  as  a  consequence,  that  none  of  the  men  sug- 
gested for  the  nomination  in  1876  was  ever  before  a  candidate  before 
a  National  Convention.  With  new  men  and  new  issues  to  engage  the 
attention  and  absorb  the  interest  of  the  people,  the  preliminary  dis- 
cussion of  the  claims  of  candidates  took  a  very  wide  range.  Alto- 
gether seven  contestants  developed  sufficient  strength  in  advance  of 
the  convention  to  make  the  nomination  of  any  one  of  them  a  possibil- 
ity. These  seven  candidates  were:  James  G.  Elaine,  of  Maine;  Oliver 
P.  Morton,  of  Indiana;  Benjamin  H.  Bristow,  of  Kentucky;  Roscoe 
Conkling,  of  New  York;  Rutherford  B.  Hayes,  of  Ohio;  John  F.  Hart- 
ranft,  of  Pennsylvania,  and  Marshall  Jewell,  of  Connecticut. 

It  became  apparent  early  in  the  preliminary  canvass  that  Mr.  Blame 
was  far  in  advance  of  all  his  competitors  in  popularity  and  prestige. 
As  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  he  developed  qualifica- 
tions for  political  leadership  that  he  had  failed  to  show  at  the  be- 
ginning of  his  career.  After  six  years  in  the  chair  he  added  greatly 
to  his  strength  with  the  people  as  the  leader  of  the  Republican  mi- 
nority in  the  44th  Congress.  But  his  brilliancy,  his  daring,  and  his 
achievements  made  him  enemies  as  well  as  friends.  These  enmities 
became  an  active  element  in  his  canvass  at  the  critical  moment  when 
his  success  seemed  assured.  No  assault  upon  a  Presidential  aspirant 
was  ever  more  bitter  and  vindictive.  The  assault  was  deferred  until 
within  a  few  days  of  the  meeting  of  the  Republican  National  Conven- 
tion at  Cincinnati,  which  was  set  for  June  14.  It  took  shape  in  a 
resolution  of  the  House  of  Representatives  to  investigate  the  Pacific 
Railroad,  which,  it  was  hinted,  would  include  an  investigation  of 
Mr.  Blaine's  transactions  in  railroad  bonds.  The  insinuations  were 
that  he  had  been  bribed  by  a  gift  of  bonds  of  the  Fort  Smith  and  Little 
Rock  Railroad  Company  to  use  his  influence  in  Congress  in  behalf  of 
that  road,  and  it  was  asserted  that  a  number  of  his  letters  were  in 
existence  that  showed  guilty  complicity  in  the  affairs  of  the  company. 
This  was  the  correspondence  that  became  widely  known  as  the  "  Mul- 


336 


HISTORY    OF   THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 


ligan  letters."  The  letters  related  to  some  investments  of  Mr.  Blaine 
in  Fort  Smith  and  Little  Rock  bonds,  but  there  was  no  proof  that  the 
transactions  were  not  entirely  innocent.  These  letters  had  been  se- 
cured by  a  man  named  Mulligan,  by  whom  they  were  shown  to  the 
committee  charged  with  the  Pacific  Railroad  investigation.  When 
Mr.  Blaine  heard  of  the  use  that  was  being  made  of  his  letters,  he 
went  to  Mulligan,  and,  after  considerable  entreaty,  succeeded  in  ob- 
taining the  correspondence.  The  possession  of  the  letters  was  fol- 
lowed by  an  act  of  remarkable  daring  and  courage.  Instead  of  de- 
stroying or  concealing  the  supposed  proofs  of  his  guilt,  he  went  into 
the  House  on  June  5,  only  nine  days  before  the  Cincinnati  Convention, 
and,  making  it  a  question  of  personal  privilege,  read  the  entire  cor- 
respondence and  had  it  printed  in 
the  record.  This  intrepid  action 
broke  the  effect  of  the  insinuations 
and  surmises  by  means  of  which 
Mr.  Elaine's  enemies  were  seeking 
to  prevent  his  nomination,  but  even 
such  intrepidity  was  not  entirely 
effective,  and  his  failure  a  fortnight 
later  must  be  attributed  to  this 
cause.  Some  of  the  delegates  be- 
lieved the  charges  to  be  true,  and 
among  those  who  disbelieved  them 
there  were  some  who  thought  it 
dangerous  to  nominate  a  man  who 
was  so  seriously  assailed.  Another 
unfortunate  circumstance  that 
probably  cost  Mr.  Blaine  some 
votes  was  a  temporary  prostration 
by  sunstroke  on  the  Sunday  preceding  the  Convention. 

After  Mr.  Blaine,  the  most  prominent  of  the  candidates  for  the 
nomination  was  Senator  Morton.  His  acknowledged  ability,  his  zeal 
as  a  party  man,  and  his  services  as  the  War  Governor  of  Indiana  dur- 
ing the  Rebellion,  and  in  the  Senate  in  the  period  of  Reconstruction, 
entitled  him  to  respectful  consideration,  and  would  have  made  him  a 
formidable  candidate  for  President.  Mr.  Bristow's  pretensions  to 
the  nomination  were  a  sign  of  the  unrest  in  the  party.  He  was  not 
a  man  of  great  popularity,  wide  reputation,  or  eminent  ability,  but 
owed  his  temporary  prominence  entirely  to  his  connection  with  Presi- 
dent Grant's  administration  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  He  was 
one  of  General  Grant's  discoveries,  succeeding  William  A.  Richardson 
in  the  Treasury  Department.  For  a  number  of  years  the  heavy  tax 


OLIVKR    P.    MORTON. 


THE   HAYES   AND   WHEELER   CAMPAIGN.  337 

on  distilled  spirits  had  been  a  great  temptation  to  fraud  in  the  pro- 
duction of  whisky,  and  combinations  existed  in  many  parts  of  the 
countrj7,  especially  in  the  West,  by  which  the  tax  was  evaded.  Sec- 
retary Bristow  set  for  himself  the  task  of  ferreting  out  the  "  Whisky 
Rings,"  and  exposing  and  punishing  frauds  upon  the  revenue.  His 
operations  were  conducted  with  great  secrecy,  and,  for  a  time,  were 
very  successful.  His  methods  created  the  impression  that  he  was 
acting  independently  of  the  Administration,  if  not  in  conflict  with  it. 
Among  those  who  were  accused  of  complicity  with  these  frauds  was 
General  Babcock,  one  of  the  President's  secretaries.  This  not  only 
involved  a  number  of  persons  near  the  President,  but  even  President 
Grant,  in  suspicions  of  insincerity  in  prosecuting  the  men  guilty  of 
frauds  upon  the  revenue,  while  the  credit  for  the  prosecutions  that 
was  withheld  from  the  Administration  was  freely  bestowed  upon  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  In  this  way  Mr.  Bristow  was  able  to  de- 
velop surprising  strength  as  a  Presidential  candidate,  becoming  the 
favorite  of  the  sincere  and  honest  Republicans  who  were  urgent  for 
administrative  reform.  Senator  Conkling  was  backed  by  the  powerful 
delegation  from  his  own  State,  and  was  aided,  besides,  by  the  good 
will  and  good  wishes  of  General  Grant.  He  was  not  eager  for  the 
nomination  for  himself,  but  he  entered  the  convention  determined  to 
beat  Blaine,  in  which  he  succeeded.  Neither  Governor  Hayes,  of 
Ohio,  nor  Governor  Hartranft,  of  Pennsylvania,  was  regarded  as  for- 
midable at  any  time  previous  to  the  convention,  and  the  delegation 
secured  the  nomination  for  the  Ohio  candidate  only  because  the  dele- 
gates from  Pennsylvania  made  no  serious  effort  to  obtain  it  for  Hart- 
ranft. Governor  Jewell  had  no  support  beyond  the  delegation  from 
his  own  State. 

The  Republican  National  Convention  of  1870  was  as  noteworthy  as 
any  of  the  great  national  councils  of  the  party  that  had  preceded  it. 
Among  the  distinguished  delegates  from  the  different  States  were: 
Eugene  Hale,  William  P.  Frye,  Nelson  Dingley,  Jr.,  and  Charles  A. 
Boutelle,  of  Maine;  E.  Rockwood  and  George  F.  Hoar,  Richard  H. 
Dana,  Jr.,  and  James  Russell  Lowell,  of  Massachusetts;  Governor 
Van  Zandt  and  Nelson  W.  Aldrich,,of  Rhode  Island;  General  Hawley 
and  Samuel  Fessenden,  of  Connecticut;  George  William  Curtis, 
Alonzo  B.  Cornell,  Theodore  M.  Pomeroy,  Stewart  L.  Woodford,  Clar- 
ence A.  Seward,  William  H.  Robertson,  Frank  Hiscock,  Thomas  C. 
Platt,  James  N.  Matthews,  and  Charles  Emory  Smith,  of  New  York; 
William  J.  Sewell,  George  A.  Halsey,  and  Garret  A.  Hobart,  of  New 
Jersey;  J.  Donald  Cameron,  p]dward  McPherson,  John  Cessna,  Henry 
M.  Hoyt,  and  Henry  H.  Bingham,  of  Pennsylvania;  the  venerable 
Senator  Wade  and  Governor  Noyes,  of  Ohio;  Henry  P.  Baldwin  and 


338  HISTORY   OF   THE   REPUBLICAN    PARTY. 

William  A.  Howard,  of  Michigan ;  John  M.  Harlan  and  James  Speed, 
of  Kentucky;  Charles  B.  Farwell  and  Robert  G.  Ingersoll,  of  Illinois; 
Richard  W.  Thompson,  of  Indiana;  Nathan  Goff,  Jr.,  of  West  Vir- 
ginia; Philetns  Sawyer,  of  Wisconsin;  Alexander  Ramsey  and  Dwight 
M.  Sabin,  of  Minnesota;  Jerome  B.  Chaffee  and  Henry  M.  Teller,  of 
Colorado;  John  P.  Jones,  of  Nevada;  and  Governor  Packard  and  Sen- 
ator Kellogg,  of  Louisiana.  These,  it  will  be  observed,  included  a 
number  of  names,  new  to  this  history,  that  afterward  took  a  con- 
spicuous place  in  the  annals  of  the  party. 

Theodore  M.  Ponieroy,  of  New  York,  was  made  temporary  chair- 
man of  the  Convention,  and  Edward  McPherson,  of  Pennsylvania, 
permanent  President.  Mr.  McPherson  had  been  a  member  of  Con- 
gress early  in  the  war,  and  Clerk  of  the  National  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives during  the  entire  period  of  Mr.  Elaine's  Speakership.  Gen- 
eral Hawley  was  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Resolutions  to  which 
was  committed  a  task  scarcely  less  important  than  the  duty  that  de- 
volved upon  the  Convention  of  nominating  a  ticket.  On  only  one 
question  was  there  a  marked  divergence  of  views  in  the  Committee  in 
framing  the  Platform.  This  difference  was  in  regard  to  the  financial 
policy  of  the  party.  The  Resumption  Act  of  1875,  providing  for  a 
return  to  specie  payments  in  1879,  was  thought  by  some  members  of 
the  committee  to  be  premature,  and  there  were  doubts  of  the  wis- 
dom of  its  explicit  indorsement.  A  long  debate  ensued,  but  it  wras 
finally  determined  to  intrust  the  whole  duty  of  framing  a  platform  to 
a  sub-committee,  comprising  General  Hawley,  former  Attorney-Gen- 
eral Speed,  Governor  Dingley,  of  Maine;  Governor  Chamberlain,  of 
South  Carolina;  Governor  Waters,  of  Arkansas;  James  II.  Howe,  of 
Wisconsin,  and  Charles  Emory  Smith,  of  New  York.  This  Commit- 
tee succeeded  in  framing  a  Platform  that  was  clear  and  emphatic  on 
the  leading  issues.  Starting  with  a  reaffirmation  of  the  cardinal 
truths  contained  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  suggested  by 
the  Centennial  year,  it  recognized  the  pacification  of  the  South  and 
the  protection  of  all  its  citizens  as  a  sacred  duty;  the  enforcement  of 
the  Constitutional  Amendments  was  enjoined,  and  the  obligation  of 
removing  any  just  cause  of  discontent  was  coupled  with  that  of  se- 
curing to  every  American  citizen  complete  liberty  and  exact  equality 
in  the  exercise  of  all  civil,  political,  and  public  rights;  the  Public 
Credit  Act,  the  measure  first  signed  by  President  Grant,  was  referred 
to  with  the  declaration  that  its  "  pledge  must  be  fulfilled  by  a  con- 
tinuous and  steady  progress  to  specie  payments."  The  platform  also 
embraced  a  distinct  declaration  for  a  radical  reform  of  the  civil 
service,  making  a  broader  and  more  precise  enunciation  than  was  con- 
tained in  the  Liberal  platform  of  1872,  though  the  assigned  reason 


THE   HAYES   AND   WHEELER   CAMPAIGN.  339 

for  that  revolt,  as  given  by  its  champions,  was  the  alleged  hostility  of 
the  Republican  party  to  improvement  in  the  Government  service.  The 
Protective  policy  was  upheld;  the  extirpation  of  polygamy  was  de- 
manded, and  an  investigation  into  the  Chinese  question,  then  begin- 
ning to  distract  California,  was  recommended.  In  the  Convention 
efforts  were  made  to  strike  out  the  eleventh  resolution  relating  to  the 
Chinese,  and  to  substitute  for  the  fourth  resolution  a  more  urgent 
plank  in  favor  of  resumption;  but  both  propositions  failed,  the  former 
by  532  nays  to  215  yeas,  and  the  latter  without  a  count. 

The  candidates  were  all  formally  placed  in  nomination  before  the 
balloting  began.  Mr.  Thompson,  of  Indiana,  presented  Senator  Mor- 
ton, and  Mr.  Bristow  was  put  in  nomination  by  Judge  Harlan,  of  Ken- 
tucky. Mr.  Bristow's  nomination  was  indorsed  in  glowing  speeches  by 
two  of  the  literary  delegates — George  William  Curtis,  of  New  York, 
and  Richard  Henry  Dana,  Jr.,  of  Massachusetts.  Mr.  Blaine  was  nom- 
inated by  Col.  Robert  G.  Ingersoll,  of  Illinois,  in  a  speech  that  at  once 
became  famous,  and  is  still  quoted  as  a  brilliant  example  of  Con- 
vention oratory.  Elaine's  nomination  was  seconded  by  William  P. 
Frye,  of  Maine,  and  the  Rev.  Mr.  Turner,  a  well-known  colored 
preacher,  of  Georgia.  Senator  Conkling  was  put  in  nomination  by 
Gen.  Stewart  L.  Woodford,  of  New  York;  Governor  Hayes  by  Ex- 
Governor  Noyes,  of  Ohio;  Governor  Hartranft  by  Linn  Bartholomew, 
of  Pennsylvania,  and  Marshall  Jewell  by  Stephen  W.  Kellogg,  of  Con- 
necticut. When  the  speech-making  was  over  the  ballots  followed 
each  other  in  quick  succession,  with  the  following  results: 

1st.  2d.  3d.  4th.  5th.  6th.    7th. 

Blaine 285  296  293  292  286  308  351 

Morton 125  120  113  108  95  85 

Bristow  113  114  121  126  114  111   21 

Conkling  99  93  90  84  82  81 

Hayes  61  64  67  68  104  113  384 

Hartranft  58  63  68  71  69  50 

Jewell 11 

Scattering ;  3  4  3  5  5  5 

Whole  number 754     754     755     754     755     755     756 

Necessary    378     378     378     378     378     378     379 

On  the  first  ballot  Mr.  Blaine  received  a  vote  exceeding  that  of 
four  of  his  competitors,  the  two  highest  and  the  two  lowest;  on  the 
second  ballot,  when  the  unit  rule  by  which  some  of  the  delegates 
were  bound  was  abrogated  by  the  convention,  he  had  a  strength  that 


340 


HISTORY  OF  THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY, 


fell  only  two  votes  short  of  that  of  his  two  highest  opponents  and  his 
successful  competitor.  On  the  sixth  ballot  he  was  only  TO  votes  short 
of  a  majority  in  a  total  of  755,  and  on  the  final  ballot  it  required  the 
combination  of  the  entire  strength  of  the  opposition,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  a  small  contingent  that  remained  true  to  Bristow,  to  defeat 
him.  Elaine  and  Bristow  on  the  first  ballot  were  the  only  candidates 
who  had  more  than  a  local  strength,  the  support  of  the  former  being 
divided  among  twenty-eight  States  and  seven  Territories,  and  of  the 
latter  among  nineteen  States  and  one  Territory.  Mr.  Morton's  support 
was  wholly  from  the  South,  except  the  30  votes  from  his  own  State, 

Indiana.  Seventy  of  Mr. 
Conkling's  99  votes  came 
from  New  York.  Hayes 
had  the  44  votes  of  Ohio 
and  IT  from  other  States. 
The  vote  for  Hartranft 
was  that  of  the  Pennsyl- 
vania delegation.  The 
subsequent  concen- 
tration upon  Hayes  was 
only  expressive  of  the 
bitterness  of  feeling  in 
opposition  to  Blaine.  It 
was  a  grave  political 
blunder  in  itself,  apart 
from  its  consequences, 
which  could  not  be  fore- 
seen. Governor  Hayes 
had  no  qualities  that 
o  u  g  h  t  to  have  com- 
mended him  to  the  Con- 
vention as  a  more  desira- 
ble candidate  than  Mr. 

Blaine.  He  occupied  no  commanding  position  before  the  country.  In 
the  Civil  War  his  services  were  praiseworthy,  but  not  more  distin- 
guished than  those  of  hundreds  of  others  who  were  not  thought  of  for 
the  Presidency.  In  Congress  he  had  not  taken  rank  as  a  leader,  either 
on  the  floor,  or  in  the  work  of  the  committee  room.  Whatever  pres- 
tige he  possessed  was  due  to  the  fact  that  he  had  beaten  the  two  lead- 
ing Democrats  of  Ohio  for  the  Governorship — Allen  G.  Thurman  in 
1867  and  George  H.  Pendleton  in  1869.  He  was  elected  Governor  of 
Ohio  for  the  third  term  in  18T5,  and  thus  enjoyed  the  advantage  of 
being  in  office  at  the  time  the  Republican  National  Convention  was 


RUTHERFORD    B.    HAYES. 


THE   HAYES   AND   WHEELER   CAMPAIGN. 


341 


held  in  the  leading  city  of  his  State.  If  the  Convention  had  been 
held  in  Philadelphia  it  is  not  improbable  that  Governor  Hartranft 
would  have  received  the  nomination.  It  was  the  absence  of  personal 
and  political  antagonisms — in  a  word,  of  positive  strength — that 
made  him  acceptable  as  a  candidate  in  a  Convention  distracted  by 
personal  and  political  feuds.  The  nomination  created  no  enthusiasm, 
but,  after  the  disappointment  over  Mr.  Elaine's  defeat  had  passed 
away,  the  whole  party  labored  for  the  election  of  Governor  Hayes, 
forgetful  of  the  conditions  that  had  rendered  his  nomination  pos- 
sible. 

Five  names  were  presented  for  the  Vice-Presidency — those  of  Will- 
iam A.  Wheeler  and  Stewart  L.  Woodford,  of  New  York;  Marshall 
Jewell  and  Joseph  R.  Hawley,  of  Connecticut;  and  Frederick  T. 
Frelinghuysen,  of  New  Jersey — but  the 
balloting  showed  such  a  great  preponder- 
ance in  favor  of  Mr.  Wheeler  that  all  the 
other  candidates  were  withdrawn,  and  he 
was  nominated  by  acclamation.  In  Con- 
gress Mr.  WTheeler's  most  important  serv- 
ice was  as  Chairman  of  the  Committee 
on  the  Pacific  Railroad;  but  he  earned 
most  prominence  before  the  country 
through  what  was  knowrn  as  the  "  Wheel- 
er Compromise."  It  grew  out  of  the  dis- 
turbed condition  of  Louisiana  in  1874-5. 
There  existed  in  that  State  an  organiza- 
tion, affiliated  with  the  Ku-Klux,  known 
as  the  White  League.  Many  negroes  were 
killed  by  members  of  the  League  for  the 
crime  of  being  Republicans.  In  many 

parishes  white  Republicans  were  either  ostracized  or  driven  away, 
if  they  were  not  murdered.  Honest  elections  were  rendered  impos- 
sible, and  since  1872  the  right  to  administer  the  State  govern- 
ment had  been  in  dispute.  There  were,  in  fact,  two  State  govern- 
ments from  1872  to  1875,  Governor  Kellogg,  Republican,  adminis- 
tering one,  and  Governor  McEnery,  Democrat,  the  other.  The  two 
Houses  of  Congress  recognized  the  Kellogg  government  in  March, 
1875,  and  the  contentions  in  regard  to  the  rights  to  seats  in  the  Louisi- 
ana House  of  Representatives  were  adjusted  by  an  award  of  a  Special 
Committee  of  the  National  House  of  Representatives  in  April.  As 
Mr.  Wheeler  was  a  member  of  this  Committee,  and  was  active  in  ef- 
fecting the  adjustment,  the  settlement  was  popularly  called  the 
"  Wheeler  Compromise."  This  compromise  was  accepted  and  ob- 


WILLIAM    A.    WHEELER. 


342  HISTORY   OF   THE   REPUBLICAN    PARTY. 

served  until  the  elections  of  1876  gave  occasion  for  new  frauds,  and 
renewed  contentions. 

With  a  weak  ticket,  headed  by  a  man  of  respectable  but  negative 
character,  the  Republicans  found  themselves  confronted  by  the 
ablest  Democratic  leader  of  his  epoch.  This  was  Samuel  J.  Til- 
den.  The  story  of  his  rapid  rise  to  supremacy  in  the  Democratic 
party  is  one  of  the  romances  of  American  politics.  A  close  student 
of  political  affairs,  he  had  never  been  closely  identified  with  party 
management.  Thirty  years  before  he  had  served  in  the  New  York 
Legislature,  and  as  a  member  of  the  Constitutional  Convention  of 
1846.  A  disciple  of  Van  Buren,  he  had  taken  part  with  the  Barn- 
burners in  the  Free  Soil  movement  of  1848,  but  was  not  long  an  active 
opponent  of  slavery  extension.  During  the  next  twenty  years  he 
held  aloof  from  politics  almost  altogether,  devoting  himself  to  his 
profession  as  a  lawyer,  and  amassing  a  large  fortune  as  an  acute 
man  of  business.  The  only  public  position  that  he  held  during  the 
stirring  periods  of  the  war  and  reconstruction  wras  that  of  a  member 
of  the  New  York  Constitutional  Convention  of  1867.  But  he  re- 
mained a  Democrat,  and  succeeded  Dean  Richmond  as  Chairman  of 
the  Democratic  State  Committee,  in  which  he  was  treated  as  a  re- 
spectable nonentity  by  the  New  York  Democracy.  No  one  thought 
of  Tilden  as  a  Presidential  possibility  when  Horatio  Seymour  was 
nominated  in  1868,  or  Horace  Greeley  indorsed  by  the  Baltimore 
Convention  in  1872.  The  echoes  of  Mr.  Greeley's  disastrous  cam- 
paign had  scarcely  died  away  when  Mr.  Tilden  took  the  first  steps 
that  were  to  lead  to  his  nomination  in  1876.  His  opportunity  came  in 
the  downfall  of  the  "  Tweed  Ring,"  in  the  exposure  of  which  he  took 
an  active  and  vigorous  part.  Although  the  work  of  bringing  the 
members  of  the  powerful  combination  of  which  Tweed  was  the  chief 
to  punishment  began  in  1871,  it  was  not  until  1873  that  the  convic- 
tion of  some  of  the  conspirators  was  accomplished.  In  the  interval 
Mr.  Tilden  had  not  only  labored  in  the  courts  and  as  a  member  of  the 
Assembly  for  the  extirpation  of  this  shameless  conspiracy  in  all  the 
ramifications,  but  he  had  grasped  the  party  leadership  in  the  City 
and  State  of  New  York,  and  boldly  marked  out  a  career  for  himself 
in  his  sixtieth  year  that  other  men  had  hopefully  and  vainly  cher- 
ished during  the  long  period  that  he  seemed  indifferent  to  the  prize. 
After  the  complete  overthrow  of  the  "  Tweed  Ring,"  the  next  step 
toward  the  Presidency — the  Governorship — was  easy.  Mr.  Tilden 
became  the  Democratic  candidate  for  Governor  of  New  York  in  1874, 
and  was  lifted  from  that  stepping-stone  to  a  Presidential  nomination 
on  the  great  tidal  wave  of  that  year.  As  Governor  of  New  York,  he 
waged  a  vigorous  war  upon  the  corrupt  "  Canal  Ring,"  that  was  to 


THE   HAYES   AND   WHEELER   CAMPAIGN.  343 

the  State  what  the  shameful  u  Tweed  King  "  had  been  to  the  City  of 
New  York.  His  success  made  his  ascendancy  over  the  Democratic 
party  in  his  own  State  supreme,  and  his  supremacy  in  New  York  en- 
abled him  to  create  a  national  force  in  his  interest  as  potent  as  it  was 
compact — as  inspiring  as  it  was  fondly  believed  it  would  prove  irre- 
sistible. 

Mr.  Tildeu's  claim  to  distinction  as  a  Presidential  aspirant  rests 
not  so  much  upon  the  fact  that  he  created  a  party  in  his  own  behalf 
as  that  he  re-created  the  Democracy.  The  Democratic  party,  as  he 
found  it  in  1874,  was  a  poor,  tattered,  beshredded  fragment  of  the 
great  inheritance  that  had  come  down  to  a  new  generation  from 
Jefferson  and  Jackson.  It  was  discredited  by  an  odious  war  record. 
On  the  great  financial  questions  that  were  to  be  the  real  issues  of 
the  future  it  had  trimmed  its  sails  to  every  wind  of  doctrine.  No 
party  that  ever  existed  clung  so  tenaciously  to  galvanized  tradi- 
tions, or  discarded  them  so  lightly  at  the  suggestion  of  temporary 
expediency.  But  it  was  still  a  power  for  voicing  the  discontent  of 
the  people,  if  it  could  find  a  mind  to  direct  and  a  hand  to  guide  it. 
Mr.  Tildeu  saw  his  opportunity,  and  he  embraced  it  with  a  skill  un- 
matched in  the  annals  of  American  politics,  except  by  the  organizing 
ability  of  Jefferson,  and  the  deft  manipulation  of  Van  Buren.  These 
were  his  political  masters,  and  he  possessed  many  of  the  gifts  of 
both,  without  the  subtler  qualities  of  either.  His  plan  was  to  vitalize 
the  Democracy  by  promoting  Republican  discontent.  The  demand 
for  administrative  reform,  which  was  expressive  of  this  discontent, 
he  appropriated  to  his  own  use  and  that  of  the  Democracy  as  com- 
pletely as  if  he  had  invented  it.  His  fitness  for  the  task  was  osten- 
tatiously exhibited  by  the  success  of  his  methods  in  the  government 
of  the  Empire  State.  All  this  was  backed  by  a  political  organization 
more  perfect  than  had  been  known  since  the  early  years  of  the  De- 
mocracy. In  the  brief  period  of  two  years,  Mr.  Tilden  gained  the  un- 
disputed control  of  the  Democratic  party,  and  he  entered  the  Na- 
tional Convention  at  St.  Louis,  in  1876,  with  a  strength  that  no  other 
candidate  could  hope  successfully  to  dispute.  An  attempt  was  made 
to  divert  a  part  of  his  support  to  other  candidates,  including  Gov- 
ernor Hendricks  and  General  Hancock,  but  it  failed  disastrously,  Mr. 
Tilden  lacking  only  a  few  votes  of  the  necessary  two-thirds  on  the 
first  ballot.  Before  the  second  ballot  ended  the  vote  was  declared 
to  be  unanimous,  and  Mr.  Hendricks  was  then  nominated  for  Vice- 
President  without  opposition  further  than  a  declaration  of  the  In- 
diana delegation  that  it  was  not  informed  of  his  willingness  to  accept 
the  second  place  on  the  ticket. 

The  Democratic  National  Convention  of  1876  met  at  St.  Louis  on 


344  HISTORY   OF  THE   REPUBLICAN  .  PARTY. 

June  28.  Henry  Watterson,  of  Kentucky,  was  made  temporary,  and 
Gen.  John  A.  McClernand,  of  Illinois,  permanent  President  of  the 
Convention.  Among  the  delegates  were  many  of  the  conspicuous 
Democrats  of  the  country,  including  Judge  Abbott,  of  Massachusetts; 
Francis  Kernan  and  William  Dorsheimer,  of  New  York;  Leon  Abbett, 
of  New  Jersey;  William  A.  Wallace  and  Samuel  J.  Randall,  of  Penn- 
sylvania; Gen.  Thomas  Ewing,  of  Ohio;  Daniel  W.  Voorhees  and 
Governor  Williams,  of  Indiana;  James  R.  Doolittle  and  William  F. 
Vilas,  of  Wisconsin,  and  Robert  M.  McLane,  of  Maryland.  The  in- 
terests of  Mr.  Tilden  in  the  Convention  were  ostensibly  in  charge  of 
Senator  Kernan,  but  in  reality  under  the  direction  of  Mr.  Dors- 
heimer, who  had  left  the  Republican  party  with  the  Liberal  Repub- 
lican movement  four  years  before,  and  had  become  active  in  Demo- 
cratic politics  as  Tilden's  lieutenant.  Mr.  Dorsheimer  was  a  type  of 
the  men  Mr.  Tilden  brought  into  active  leadership  in  the  Demo- 
cratic politics  of  New  York.  They  were  mostly  young  politicians, 
who  implicity  obeyed  the  orders  of  their  great  chief,  and,  with  Gov- 
ernor Tilden,  constituted  a  new  Albany  Regency.  Few  of  the  con- 
spicuous Democrats  of  previous  years  wrere  in  sympathy  with  the  new 
"  machine,"  and  some  of  them  were  in  open  and  earnest  opposition. 

These  enmities  led  to  a  futile  attempt  to  organize  a  movement  at 
St.  Louis  to  defeat  Tilden.  It  was  led  by  John  Kelly,  who  had 
succeeded  in  reconstructing  Tammany,  and  was  its  acknowledged 
chief.  Mr.  Kelly's  hostility  was  based  on  the  assumption  that  if 
nominated,  Mr.  Tilden  could  not  carry  his  own  State,  and  that  con- 
sequently he  would  be  defeated.  In  accord  with  Mr.  Kelly  were 
Augustus  Schell,  the  Chairman  of  the  Democratic  National  Com- 
mittee; Erastus  Corning,  the  veteran  leader  of  the  New  York  State 
Democracy;  and  Chief  Justice  Church,  of  the  New  York  Court  of  Ap- 
peals. It  is  a  proof  of  the  thoroughness  and  virility  of  Mr.  Tilden's 
reorganization  of  the  Democracy  that  it  was  not  only  able  to  resist 
such  powerful  influences,  but  gained  strength  from  a  movement  that 
was  so  evidently  the  result  of  jealousy  and  enmity. 

The  Platform  adopted  at  St.  Louis  was  the  longest  and  most  di- 
dactic declaration  of  principles  that  had  ever  emanated  from  a  Na- 
tional Convention.  It  was  credited  to  the  pen  of  Manton  Marble,  the 
editor  of  the  New  York  World,  but  it  was  prepared  under  the  eye  and 
with  the  direction  of  Mr.  Tilden  himself.  It  was  at  once  an  indict- 
ment of  the  Republican  party  and  an  appeal  to  the  people,  but  with 
Reform  as  its  keynote,  it  was  vague  and  indefinite  in  its  enunciation 
of  methods.  It  was  resonant,  but  not  convincing.  It  charged  the 
Republican  party  with  making  no  advances  toward,  or  preparation 
.  for,  resumption,  and  then  denounced  the  resumption  clause  of  the  act 


THE   HAYES   AND   WHEELER   CAMPAIGN.  345 

of  1875,  and  demanded  its  repeal.  It  assailed  the  existing  tariff  as 
"  a  masterpiece  of  injustice,  inequality,  and  false  pretense/'  and  de- 
manded that  "  all  custom  house  taxation  shall  be  only  for  revenue." 
It  assailed  the  Republican  party  for  the  alleged  failure  "  to  make 
good  the  promise  of  the  legal  tender  notes,"  but  indicated  no  Demo- 
cratic plan  by  which  to  obtain  a  sound  currency.  It  was  a  platform 
that  committed  the  Democracy  to  no  principles  of  finance  or  govern- 
ment, and  gave  no  promise  of  Democratic  policy.  With  this  platform 
of  phrases  and  platitudes,  and  with  one  candidate  appealing  to  the 
hard-money  sentiment  in  the  North  and  East,  and  the  other  to  the 
soft-money  vagaries  of  the  South  and  West,  it  aimed  to  hold  together 
the  Democrats  of  the  Jackson  School  and  the  "  New  Lights,"  who  for 
eight  years  had  been  captivated  by  the  "  Ohio  Idea." 

The  canvass  was  devoid  of  the  incidents  that  in  previous  years  had 
made  Presidential  campaigns  stirring  political  episodes.  There  were 
no  log  cabin  and  hard  cider  barbecues,  as  in  1840;  no  Wide  Awake 
processions,  *as  in  I860.  There  were  no  great  popular  gatherings  ad- 
dressed by  the  Democratic  candidate,  as  had  been  the  devices  of  Mr. 
Douglas  in  1860,  Mr.  Seymour  in  1868,  and  Mr.  Greeley  in  1872.  Gov- 
ernor Hayes  left  his  campaign  in  the  hands  of  the  party  leaders,  and 
it  was  ably  and  skillfully  directed  by  Zachariah  Chandler,  of  Mich- 
igan, the  Chairman  of  the  Republican  National  Committee.  Mr.  Til- 
den  took  a  more  active  personal  control  of  his  canvass,  directing  his 
efforts  toward  securing  the  electoral  vote  of  a  "  solid  South,"  together 
with  the  votes  of  New  York,  Connecticut,  New  Jersey,  Indiana,  and 
possibly  Oregon.  The  October  States,  Ohio  and  Indiana,  did  not 
clearly  foreshadow  the  result  in  November,  the  former  going  Repub- 
lican by  9,000,  and  the  latter  Democratic  by  5,000.  The  trend,  how- 
ever, was  favorable  to  Mr.  Tilden.  As  Ohio  was  not  in  the  list  of 
States  necessary  to  his  success,  its  loss  was  not  vital,  while  the  in- 
dications were  that  Mr.  Hendricks  would  be  able  to  carry  his  own 
State  for  the  ticket  of  which  he  was  a  part  by  a  majority  as  large,  if 
not  larger,  than  that  by  which  Gen.  Benjamin  Harrison  had  been 
beaten  for  Governor.  This  proved  to  be  no  miscalculation,  and  Til- 
den  was  successful  in  all  the  other  States  on  his  list  except  Oregon, 
which  had  been  conceded  to  be  in  doubt.  According  to  the  early  re- 
ports on  the  night  after  the  election,  Mr.  Tilden's  expectations  in  re- 
gard to  a  "  Solid  South  "  had  also  been  realized.  The  Democrats 
went  to  their  beds  firmly  convinced  that  his  election  was  assured, 
and  the  Republicans  feared  that  the  South,  for  the  first  time  since 
1856,  had  elected  a  President  of  the  United  States.  There  was  one 
ray  of  hope,  however,  in  a  message  that  was  flashed  over  the  wires  at 
an  early  hour  on  the  morning  after  the  election.  It  came  from  the 


346 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 


Chairman  of  the  Republican  National  Committee,  and  was  in  these 
words:  "  Rutherford  B.  Hayes  has  received  one  hundred  and  eighty- 
five  electoral  votes,  and  is  elected." 

The  information  on  which  this  message  was  based  will  be  told  in 
detail  in  the  following  chapter,  giving  the  history  of  the  most  extraor- 
dinary contest  that  ever  took  place  in  the  settlement  of  the  choice  of 
an  American  President.  In  all  thirty-eight  States  voted  for  Presi- 
dent and  Vice-President,  November  7,  1876.  The  whole  number  of 
electoral  votes  was  369.  The  solid  South  would  give  Mr.  Tilden  138 
votes,  and  these,  with  the  65  votes  of  Connecticut,  New  Jersey,  and 
Indiana,  would  make  a  total  of  203.  Mr.  Chandler's  information  led 
him  to  believe  that  South  Carolina,  Florida,  and  Louisiana  had  gone 

Republican,  and  it  was  upon  this 
claim  that  the  disputed  election 
turned. 

An  incident  of  the  campaign  was 
the  candidature  of  Peter  Cooper,  of 
New  York,  and  Samuel  F.  Gary,  of 
Ohio,  as  the  nominees  of  the  Green- 
back, or  Independent  National  party. 
Mr.  Cooper  was  a  millionaire  man- 
ufacturer of  New  York,  whose 
monument  is  and  always  will  be,  the 
great  public  benefaction  created  by 
him  in  New  York  City  —  the  Cooper 
Union.  He  was  a  man  of  irreproach- 
able character,  but  inclined  to  politi- 
cal crotchets,  and  not  entirely  free 
from  the  vanity  of  a  self-made  man 

long  subjected  to  adulation  because  of  his  great  wealth  and  prac- 
tical benevolence.  Mr.  Gary  was  a  quixotic  politician,  who  was 
placed  on  the  ticket  as  Mr.  Cooper's  running  mate  after  Newton 
Booth,  of  California,  had  declined  to  be  a  candidate.  The  ticket 
was  not  looked  upon  as  a  serious  element  in  the  canvass,  but  the 
candidates  received  a  small  vote  in  twenty-four  of  the  thirty-eight 
States.  In  only  one  State,  Indiana,  was  it  large  enough  to  in- 
fluence the  result.  The  popular  vote  of  Indiana  was:  For  Tilden, 
213,526;  for  Hayes,  208,011,  and  for  Cooper,  17,233.  It  will  thus  be 
seen  that  Mr.  Cooper's  candidature,  lightly  as  it  has  been  regarded, 
may  have  been  the  cause  of  the  failure  of  the  Republicans  to  obtain 
the  15  electoral  votes  of  Indiana,  which  would  have  rendered  only 
the  vote  of  South  Carolina  necessary  to  the  election  of  Hayes  and 
Wheeler.  The  aggregate  "  Greenback  "  vote  was  81,737. 


PETER     COOPER. 


III. 

THE   ELECTORAL    COUNT. 

The  Disputed  States — Visiting  Statesmen — Opinions  on  the  Mode  of 
Counting  the  Electoral  Vote— Committees  Appointed  by  the 
House  and  Senate — Electoral  Commission  Bill — Processes  that 
Led  to  an  Agreement — Plans  of  the  House  Committee — Justice 
Davis — Obstacles  in  the  Way  of  the  Agreement — The  Senate 
Plan — A  Commission  not  a  Tribunal — All  Plans  Hinge  on  the 
Question  of  Justice  Davis's  Bias — The  Plan  Agreed  Upon — The 
Commission  Constituted  and  Organized- — The  Count  Begun— 
The  Florida  Case  Heard — The  Cases  of  Louisiana,  Oregon,  and 
South  Carolina — The  Cipher  Dispatches  and  Attempts  at 
Bribery. 


HE  dispute  over  the  returns  that  were  to  make  Hayes  or  Til- 
den  President  of  the  United  States  lasted  from  November 
8,  1876,  when  Chairman  Chandler's  claim  was  announced, 
until  March  2,  1877,  when  the  title  to  the  Presidency  was 
finally  awarded  to  Rutherford  B.  Hayes.  The  interval  was  one  of 
great  excitement  and  peril.  Both  Republicans  and  Democrats  were 
persistent  in  claiming  a  victory  in  the  three  disputed  States.  Every 
Republican  knew  that  in  these  three  States  a  Republican  majority, 
ui)oii  an  honest  vote  and  legal  count,  was  assured.  In  South  Caro- 
lina and  Louisiana  the  colored  voters,  who  were  unanimously  Repub- 
lican, greatly  outnumbered  the  whites.  In  Florida,  where  the  two 
i-Mces  were  nearly  equal  in  number,  there  wras  a  sufficient  population 
of  white  Republicans  to  make  a  Republican  majority  a  certainty. 
The  importance  of  a  fair  count  was  manifest.  A  proposition  was 
made  almost  immediately,  and  at  once  acted  upon,  that  each  party 
should  send  a  number  of  prominent  men  to  the  States  in  which  the 
elections  were  disputed  to  see  that  the  count  was  fairly  and  honestly 
made.  Some  of  these  were  appointed  by  President  Grant,  and  the 
others  by  the  Democratic  National  Committee.  Both  sets  were  pop- 
ularly known  as  "  the  visiting  statesmen,"  but  neither  set  accom- 
plished anything  practical,  or  contributed  in  any  marked  degree  to- 
ward allaying  the  prevailing  excitement.  President  Grant,  however, 
took  effective  measures  for  preventing  an  outbreak  in  the  two  States 
where  the  greatest  danger  existed.  On  November  10,  only  three 
days  after  the  Presidential  election,  he  sent  to  General  Sherman, 


34:8  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

commanding  the  Army,  the  following  memorable  dispatch:  "  In- 
struct General  Augur  in  Louisiana,  and  General  Ruger  in  Florida,  to 
be  vigilant  with  the  force  at  their  command  to  preserve  peace  and 
good  order,  and  to  see  that  the  proper  and  legal  boards  of  canvassers 
are  unmolested  in  the  performance  of  their  duties.  Should  there  be 
any  grounds  for  suspicion  of  a  fraudulent  count  on  either  side  it 
should  be  reported  and  denounced  at  once.  No  man  worthy  of  the 
office  of  President  should  be  willing  to  hold  it  if  counted  in  or  placed 
there  by  fraud.  Either  party  can  afford  to  be  disappointed  in  the 
result.  The  country  can  not  afford  to  have  the  result  tainted  by  the 
suspicion  of  illegal  or  false  returns." 

When  the  time  came  for  the  meeting  of  the  Electoral  Colleges  in  the 
three  States  in  which  the  elections  were  in  dispute,  on  December  6, 
the  candidates  for  election  on  both  the  Presidential  tickets  met,  and 
each  body  proceeded  to  act  as  if  it  had  been  legally  chosen.  In  South 
Carolina  the  Board  of  State  Canvassers  certified  to  the  election  of 
the  Hayes  electors  on  the  face  of  the  returns,  and  the  Republican 
electors  met  and  cast  the  vote  of  the  State  for  Hayes  and  Wheeler. 
The  Democratic  electors  also  met  and  cast  a  ballot  for  Tilden  and 
Hendricks.  The  Democratic  contention  was  that  detachments  of 
the  army  stationed  near  the  polls  had  prevented  a  fair  and  free  elec- 
tion. The  result  was  two  sets  of  returns.  In  Florida  there  were 
allegations  of  fraud  on  both  sides,  and  the  result  was  double  re- 
turns, as  in  South  Carolina.  The  canvassing  board  and  the  Gov- 
ernor certified  to  the  election  of  the  Hayes  electors,  but  the  Demo- 
cratic electors,  fortified  by  a  decision  of  the  State  courts,  met  and 
voted  for  Tilden.  In  Louisiana  there  was  anarchy  that  threatened  to 
end  in  civil  war.  There  were  two  Governors,  two  returning  boards, 
two  electoral  colleges.  By  a  trick,  one  electoral  vote  from  Oregon 
was  also  placed  in  the  disputed  column.  The  Democratic  Governor 
adjudged  one  of  the  Republican  electors,  who  held  a  small  postmas- 
tership,  ineligible,  and  gave  a  certificate  to  the  highest  candidate  on 
the  Democratic  list.  Thus,  the  result  was  in  actual  doubt  when  the 
44th  Congress  met  for  its  last  session  in  December,  1876. 

The  grave  questions  that  confronted  Congress  and  the  country 
were: 

Had  the  President  of  the  Senate,  by  virtue  of  his  office,  the  right  to 
count  the  electoral  vote? 

Did  the  Constitution  invest  him  with  discretionary  power  to 
decide  what  were  not  the  electoral  votes  of  a  State? 

Must  both  Houses  of  Congress  acquiesce  in  counting  the  votes  of  a 
State  before  they  could  be  counted,  or  would  the  objection  of  either 
House  be  fatal  to  anv  electoral  returns? 


THE   ELECTORAL  COUNT. 


349 


The  first  two  contentions  were  the  Republican  claim.  Prelimi- 
nary to  counting  the  electoral  votes  cast  at  the  Presidential  election 
of  1864,  the  two  Houses,  in  February,  1865,  adopted  a  joint  rule  di- 
recting that  "  no  electoral  vote  objected  to  shall  be  counted  except 
by  the  concurrent  vote  of  the  two  Houses."  The  rule  was  not  after- 
ward renewed,  but  it  was  observed  in  counting  the  electoral  votes  of 
1868  and  1872.  Objection  to  it  would  have  been  fatal,  but  the  ques- 
tion was  not  raised.  Now  the  validity  of  the  rule  was  vital  to  Demo- 
cratic hopes,  for  the  election  of  Tilden  would  hinge  upon  it.  Neither 
contention  could  be  satisfactory  to  the  American  people  in  a  matter 
of  such  supreme  importance 
as  the  election  of  a  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States. 
According  to  the  Republic- 
an view — that  is,  the  view 
of  some  Republicans — the 
Acting  Vice-President,  Mr. 
Ferry,  who  was  a  Republic- 
an, could  count  the  votes 
of  the  three  disputed  States 
in  favor  of  Mr.  Hayes,  and 
he  would  be  the  President- 
elect, in  defiance  of  the  will 
of  either  or  both  Houses  of 
Congress.  According  to  the 
Democratic  view  —  that  is, 
the  view  of  some  Democrats 
—the  House  of  Representa- 
tives, which  was  Demo- 
cratic, could  reject  the  votes 
of  any  one  of  the  three  dis- 
puted States,  or  the  dis- 
puted vote  of  Oregon,  and  Mr.  Tilden  would  be  the  President-elect.  In- 
sistence on  either  of  these  propositions  meant  an  outbreak.  The  Demo- 
crats especially  were  defiant.  Threats  were  openly  made  that  Hayes 
should  never  be  inaugurated,  and  a  fiery  Democratic  editor,  Henry 
Watterson,  announced  that  a  hundred  thousand  Democrats  would 
march  to  Washington  and  install  Mr.  Tilden  in  office.  The  Republic- 
ans were  not  so  threatening,  but  not  less  determined,  unless  a  practi- 
cal solution  of  the  difficulty  was  found.  In  the  end,  both  sides  aban- 
doned their  pretensions,  and  Congress  sought  a  basis  of  settlement 
that  would  be  more  equitable  than  either  of  these  unsatisfactory  prop- 
ositions. 


THOMAS    W.    FERRY, 


350  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

Mr.  McCrary,  of  Iowa,  introduced  a  resolution  into  the  House  of 
Representatives,  providing  for  a  committee,  to  act  in  conjunction 
with  a  similar  committee  from  the  Senate,  to  consider  the  whole  sub- 
ject of  the  disputed  votes,  and  to  recommend  to  Congress  a  course  to 
be  followed.  This  resolution  was  reported  from  the  Judiciary  Com- 
mitte  on  December  14  by  Mr.  Knott,  of  Kentucky,  the  Chairman.  The 
resolution  was  adopted  almost  unanimously.  The  committee  con- 
sisted of  seven  members,  who  were  named  by  Speaker  Randall  on 
the  22d,  as  follows:  Henry  B.  Payne,  of  Ohio;  Eppa  Hunton,  of  Vir- 
ginia; Abram  S.  Hewitt,  of  New  York,  and  William  M.  Springer,  of 
Illinois,  Democrats; — George  W.  McCrary,  of  Iowa,  George  F.  Hoar, 
of  Massachusetts,  and  George  Willard,  of  Michigan,  Republicans. 
On  the  18th  the  Senate  adopted  a  similar  resolution,  and  appointed  a 
committee  of  seven,  consisting  of  George  F.  Edmunds,  of  Vermont; 
F.  T.  Frelinghuysen,  of  New  Jersey;  John  A.  Logan,  of  Illinois,  and 
Oliver  P.  Morton  of  Indiana,  Republicans — and  Allen  G.  Thurman, 
of  Ohio;  Thomas  F.  Bayard,  of  Delaware,  and  Matt.  W.  Ransom,  of 
North  Carolina,  Democrats. 

The  resolution  declared  the  duty  of  the  committee  to  be  "  to  pre- 
pare and  report  without  delay  such  a  measure,  either  legislative  or 
constitutional,  as  may  in  their  judgment  be  best  calculated  to  ac- 
complish the  desired  end."  The  two  committees,  acting  as  one,  re- 
ported January  18,  1877,  a  bill  "  to  provide  for  and  regulate  the 
counting  of  votes  for  President  and  Vice-President,  and  the  decision 
of  questions  arising  thereon,  for  the  term  commencing  March  4,  1877.'' 
Every  member  of  the  Senate  and  House  Committees,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  Senator  Morton,  of  Indiana,  joined  in  this  report. 

The  process  by  which  the  two  committees  reached  a  common 
ground  led  each  of  them,  acting  separately,  and  without  consultation 
or  knowledge  of  wThat  the  other  was  doing,  to  almost  identical  con- 
clusions— the  device  of  an  independent  tribunal.  This  result  was 
almost  inevitable  from  the  conditions.  Most  of  the  plans  proposed 
led  directly  to  one  of  two  results,  which  could  be  foreseen  as  its 
logical  consequence — the  seating  of  Mr.  Tilden,  or  the  seating  of  Mr. 
Hayes.  It  was  certain  that  the  Republicans  would  not  agree  to  a 
plan  that  they  knew  in  advance  would  make  Mr.  Tilden  President. 
It  was  equally  certain  that  the  Democrats  would  not  agree  to  a  plan 
that  they  knew  in  advance  would  make  Mr.  Hayes  President.  Any 
such  plan,  even  if  agreed  upon  by  the  committees,  would  be  sure  to 
fail,  either  in  the  Democratic  House  or  the  Republican  Senate.  The 
element  of  judicial  uncertainty  that  would  sustain  the  hopes  of  both 
parties  was  a  necessary  incident  to  an  agreement.  Indeed,  it  may  be 
doubted  whether  the  Electoral  Commission  would  have  been  assented 


THE    ELECTORAL   COUNT.  351 

to  if  each  party  had  not  believed  that  the  political  balance  was  so 
nearly  adjusted  that  the  preponderance  was  to  its  side,  without  being- 
visible  to  the  other. 

The  draft  of  a  bill  for  an  independent  tribunal  was  first  sub- 
mitted to  the  House  Committee  by  Mr.  McCrary,  January  10,  1877. 
Mr.  McCrary  wras  a  lawyer  of  unusual  ability,  and  as  a  constructive 
statesman  he  ranked  very  high.  According  to  Mr.  McCrary's  draft, 
the  tribunal  was  to  consist  of  the  Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States 
and  of  a  certain  number  of  the  Associate  Justices  of  the  Supreme 
Court  in  the  order  of  their  seniority.  As  soon  as  the  plan  came  under 
discussion  it  became  apparent  that  Chief  Justice  Waite  would  not 
be  acceptable  to  the  Democrats.  It  was  alleged  that  during  the 
canvass  he  had  spoken  of  Mr.  Tilden  in  terms  of  personal  hostility, 
his  language  befitting  a  partisan,  rather  than  a  judge.  Whether  this 
wras  so  or  not,  it  is  certain  the  Chief  Justice  had  no  desire  to  serve  on 
the  Commission.  As  the  plan  was  finally  agreed  upon  by  the  House 
Committee  the  tribunal  was  to  consist  of  the  five  senior  Justices  of  the 
Supreme  Court.  These  wrere  Justices  Clifford,  Swayne,  Davis,  Miller, 
and  Field.  Two  of  these  wrere  Democrats  and  two  Republicans,  and 
Justice  Davis  was  not  regarded  as  either  a  Republican  or  a  Democrat. 
Although  appointed  to  the  Supreme  Bench  by  President  Lincoln,  Jus- 
tice Davis  soon  ceased  to  sympathize  with  the  Republican  party.  If 
not  a  Democrat,  he  was  in  closer  affiliation  with  the  Democracy  than 
with  the  Republicans.  The  selection  of  Justice  Davis  as  one  of  the 
Commissioners  was  an  element  in  the  Electoral  Commission  bill  in 
all  its  phases.  It  was  said  at  the  time  that  Abram  S.  HewTitt  had 
given  Mr.  Tilden  the  assurance,  or  a  strong  intimation,  that  Justice 
Davis  would  be  selected,  and  that  it  was  thus  that  Mr.  Tilden's  as- 
sent to  the  Commission  was  secured.  It  is  certain  that  the  Demo- 
crats were  led  to  support  the  bill  almost  unanimously  because  they 
believed  he  would  be  selected.  Republican  opposition  to  the  plan 
was  manifested  for  the  same  reason.  That  the  expectation  amounted 
to  a  certainty  was  accepted  by  both  sides,  and  its  failure  of  realiza- 
tion was  due  to  an  event  that  was  not  forseen,  as  will  be  shown  here- 
after. 

Apart  from  the  selection  of  the  tribunal,  there  were  obstacles  in 
the  wray  of  an  agreement  that  were  not  easily  removed.  Mr.  Mc- 
Crary's  bill  made  the  decision  of  the  proposed  tribunal  binding  un- 
less both  Houses  of  Congress  should  vote  to  overrule  it.  The  Dem- 
ocrats insisted  on  an  amendment  to  the  effect  that  the  decision  should 
have  no  binding  quality  unless  concurred  in  by  both  Houses.  To 
this  the  Republican  members  of  the  Committee  would  not  consent, 
and  the  change  was  made  by  the  Democratic  majority.  The  bill 


352  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

further  provided  that  to  the  five  eminent  Judges  to  comprise  the  tri- 
bunal were  to  be  referred  "  the  certificates  objected  to,  together  with 
the  objections,  and  all  papers  and  evidence  in  the  possession  of  the 
President  of  the  Senate,  or  of  either  of  the  Houses  of  Congress  re- 
lating thereto."  And  power  was  to  be  granted  them  "  to  send  for 
persons  and  papers,  and  to  compel  the  attendance  of  witnesses;  also 
to  cause  testimony  to  be  taken  before  one  or  more  Commissioners, 
to  be  appointed  by  them  for  that  purpose." 

While  the  House  Committee  was  formulating  a  plan  for  the  set- 
tlement of  the  question  in  dispute,  the  Senate  Committee  reached 
a  conclusion  that  was  identical  with  that  of  the  House  in  principle, 
but  differed  from  it  in  detail.  The  Senate  wanted  a  mixed  tribunal 
to  be  made  up  of  representatives  of  the  legislative  as  well  as  the 
judicial  branch  of  the  Government.  The  Commission  was  to  consist 
of  thirteen  members,  nine  to  be  taken  from  Congress,  and  four  from 
the  Supreme  Court.  Each  House  was  to  name  five  members,  one 
of  the  ten  to  be  eliminated  by  lot.  As  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives was  Democratic  and  the  Senate  Republican,  this 
would  leave  the  political  majority  a  matter  of  chance. 
This  plan  was  humorously  called  the  "  dice-box "  prin- 
ciple. While  the  House  \vas  ready  to  assent  to  the  mixed  Com- 
mission, the  Democrats  were  afraid  they  might  lose  when  it  came  to 
the  elimination  of  the  superfluous  Commissioner,  and  they  insisted  if 
there  was  to  be  a  "  lot,"  that  it  must  apply  to  the  judiciary  members 
of  the  tribunal.  There  was  a  general  discussion  of  the  grave  ques- 
tion whether  the  body  to  which  the  electoral  count  was  to  be  sub- 
mitted should  be  called  a  "  tribunal  "  or  a  "  commission,"  and  the  lat- 
ter title  was  finally  selected.  It  was  also  decided  that  the  Commis- 
sion should  consist  of  fifteen  members — five  from  each  of  the  bodies 
represented.  Then  came  a  prolonged  contest  over  the  selection  of  the 
five  representatives  of  the  Supreme  Court.  Finally  an  agreement  was 
substantially  reached,  which  provided  for  taking  six  of  the  justices  in 
the  order  of  their  seniority — Clifford,  Swayne,  Davis,  Miller,  Field, 
and  Strong — one  to  be  dropped  by  lot.  This  agreement  was  reached 
on  Saturday,  all  the  members  of  the  two  committees  assenting  to  it  ex- 
cept Mr.  Springer,  of  the  House.  The  Joint  Committee  adjourned 
to  give  Mr.  Springer  time  to  think  over  the  proposition  over  Sunday, 
but  when  it  again  met  on  Monday  a  great  change  had  been  wrought. 
In  spite  of  the  injunction  of  secrecy,  the  plan  that  came  so  near 
being  adopted  on  Saturday  had  been  made  public  through  the  col- 
umns of  a  New  York  newspaper.  Among  the  Democratic  Representa- 
tives it  raised  a  storm  of  objection  and  ridicule,  and  at  the  joint 
meeting  of  the  two  committees  on  Monday,  Mr.  Payne  announced 


THE   ELECTORAL   COUNT.  353 

to  his  associates  that,  since  their  plan  had  become  known,  the  op- 
position to  that  feature  which  provided  for  selecting  six  Justices 
of  the  Supreme  Court  and  dropping  one  by  lot,  had  developed  to  a  de- 
gree that  satisfied  him  that  it  could  never  receive  the  sanction  of  the 
House.  Following  this  announcement,  the  assent  of  the  House 
Committee  to  the  proposition  was  withdrawn,  and  it  was  again  pro- 
posed to  take  the  five  senior  Justices  outright.  This  plan,  Mr.  Payne 
argued,  would  assure  the  non-partisan  character  of  the  Commission 
without  a  resort  to  the  lot  system. 

The  only  question  really  at  issue  was  the  political  leanings  of  Jus- 
tice Davis.  It  was  claimed  that  he  was  an  independent,  leaning  no 
more  to  one  side  than  to  the  other.  To  this  Mr.  Edmunds,  sometimes 
called  the  St.  Jerome  of  the  Senate,  because  of  his  remarkable  re- 
semblance to  the  pictures  of  that  saint,  retorted  that  Judge  Davis 
was  one  of  those  "  Independents  who  stood  always  ready  to  accept 
Democratic  nominations  " ;  that  "  such  men  are  generally  the  most 
extreme  in  their  partisanship,"  and  that  he  "  would  rather  intrust  a 
decision  to  an  out  and  out  Democrat  than  to  a  so-called  Independent." 
It  was  alleged,  indeed,  that  Justice  Davis  was  a  Democrat.  "  Judge 
Davis,"  said  Mr.  Springer,  "  is  just  about  as  much  of  a  Democrat 
as  Horace  Greeley  was  in  1871.  He  is  not  now,  and  never  was,  a 
Democrat.  His  most  intimate  friends,  among  whom  I  may  count 
myself,  do  not  know  to-day  whether  he  favored  Tilden  or  Hayes.  He 
did  not  vote  at  all.  They  only  know  that  he  is  absolutely  honest  and 
fair."  During  the  discussion  Senator  Morton  was  moody,  glum,  and 
silent,  but  he  finally  rose  on  his  crutches  to  cast  a  firebrand  among  his 
associates.  He  declared  that  he  entertained  great  doubt  about  the 
power  of  calling  in  any  outside  tribunal  to  settle  this  momentous 
question.  If,  however,  there  is  such  a  power,  "  why  not  call  in  the 
whole  Supreme  Court?  Is  it  not  more  simple?  It  will  not  have  the 
appearance  of  being  fixed.  All  parties  will  be  satisfied.  Their  de- 
cision would  be  acquiesced  in  by  all."  After  the  Indiana  Senator 
had  denounced  the  plan  as  a  "  contrivance,"  Mr.  Frelinghuysen,  of 
New  Jersey,  declared  that  to  drop  one  judge  by  lot  could  not  pos- 
sibly be  susceptible  to  the  charge  of  "  being  fixed."  "  Those  fellows," 
said  Mr.  Edmunds,  "  who  believe  it  foreordained  that  Hayes  is  to  be 
President  think  the  Constitution,  as  it  is,  sufficient  for  that  purpose. 
They  will  oppose  any  legislation  whatever  on  the  subject."  Mr. 
Bayard,  more  sanguine,  perhaps,  than  some  of  the  others,  said:  "  If 
we — seven  men  of  both  Houses — could  agree,  would  there  not  be  a 
weight  in  such  an  agreement  sufficient  to  carry  it  through?  Would 
it  not  be  a  most  noble  example  of  abnegation  of  partisanship?  I  am 
one  who  believes  that  whatever  measure  is  recommended  by  this  Com- 


354  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

mittee  will  be  adopted."  Mr.  Hewitt,  who,  as  Chairman  of  the  Demo- 
cratic National  Committee,  was  credited  with  representing  the  views 
as  well  as  the  interests  of  Mr.  Tilden,  was  pressed  by  Mr.  Conkling  to 
suggest  a  way  out  of  the  entanglement.  "  My  colleague,"  replied 
Mr.  Hewitt,  "  is  aware  of  the  disadvantages  I  labor  under  in  making 
suggestions.  He  has  doubtless  observed  that  I  have  little  to  say  in 
this  discussion.  Owing  to  my  peculiar  relations,  I  am  un- 
justly supposed  to  speak  for  another.  But  my  per- 
sonal views  are  not  always  necessarily  in  harmony  with 
those  of  the  person  for  whom  I  am  supposed  to  speak." 
He  stated  his  conviction,  however,  that  the  bill  with  the  "  lot "  fea- 
ture could  never  pass.  The  Committees  were  unable  to  agree,  and 
when  they  met  again  on  Tuesday  morning  they  took  up  the  dis- 
cussion wThere  they  had  left  it  the  day  before.  Mr.  Payne  again  urged 
the  House  plan,  and  was  supported  by  Mr.  Hewitt,  who  said  his  idea 
was,  to  take  five  from  each  body,  namely,  five  from  the  Senate,  five' 
from  the  House,  and  five  from  the  Judiciary.  "  In  selecting  the 
latter,"  he  said,  "  there  is  an  obvious  propriety  in  selecting  those 
longest  on  the  bench,  as  farthest  removed  from  the  passions  of  the 
party  politics  of  the  day.  Those  recently  appointed  on  the  bench  are 
too  fresh  from  the  domain  of  politics  to  have  gotten  over  a  natural 
bias  that  they  took  with  them."  "  The  proposition  of  the  House 
Committee,"  Mr.  Frelinghuysen  said,  "  is  really  to  make  a  Com- 
mission of  eight  Democrats  and  seven  Republicans.  Judge  Davis 
has  twice  aspired  to  the  nomination  by  the  Democrats  for  the  Presi- 
dency. Perhaps  he  has  now  aspiration  for  the  future.  His  vote 
might  turn  the  Government  over  to  the  Democrats,  or  retain  the 
Republicans  in  power.  It  is  not  a  fair  proposition."  Mr.  Hewitt 
declared  that  to  the  best  of  his  information,  Judge  Davis  was  "  neu- 
tral." "  The  best  evidence  of  his  neutrality,"  said  Senator  Ed- 
munds, "'is  the  same  as  that  of  Greeley  and  Chase.  He  is  fishing 
after  Democratic  nominations."  At  this  point  Senator  Thurman 
suggested  an  even  number  of  judges.  "  I  do  not  believe,"  he  said, 
"  they  would  range  themselves  on  party  lines.  No  doubt  they  would 
decide  as  they  believed  right."  Then  came  a  suggestion  supported 
by  Mr.  Hoar  and  Mr.  Willard,  for  "  an  evenly  divided  Commission, 
which,  in  case  of  inability  to  decide,  should  be  empowered  to  call  in 
an  outsider,  some  eminent  American  not  in  public  life,  as  umpire." 
Then  the  Senate  Committee  came  forward  with  a  new  proposition. 
It  was  to  take  the  four  senior  Justices — Clifford,  Davis,  Swayne,  and 
Miller — and  these  to  select  a  fifth.  This,  it  seems,  had  the  ac- 
quiescence of  the  Democratic  members  of  the  Senate  Committee.  It 
was  not  approved,  however,  by  the  House  Democrats.  "  I  confess," 


THE   ELECTORAL   COUNT.  355 

said  Mr.  Payne,  "  that  I  am  at  a  loss  to  understand  how  this  last 
proposition  is  based  on  any  assumption  that  the  Commission  should 
be  equal.  Judge  Davis  is  not  a  Democrat.  You  ask  us  to  take  as  a 
Democrat  one  who  is  not  more  than  half  a  Democrat  against  two  ab- 
solute Republicans.  I  can  see  no  equality  in  such  a  proposition."  This 
later  plan,  however,  had  the  support  of  Senator  Bayard,  who  said: 
"  To  me  it  is  rather  saddening  that  the  agreement  should  hinge  on 
the  quantum  of  bias  in  Judge  Davis.  I  know  Judge  Davis  only 
slightly;  know  him  only  as  a  lawyer  of  limited  practice  knows  judges 
who  sit  on  the  bench  before  him.  I  believe  he  is  no  more  of  a  Demo- 
crat than  a  Republican  on  existing  issues.  I  can  not  but  believe  that 
in  this  hour  of  great  danger  to  the  institutions  of  the  country  there 
will  be  evolved  a  feeling  above  party,  a  feeling  that  shall  regard  the 
country  as  paramount  to  all  merely  partisan  ends  or  considerations. 
Party  view  is  not  the  only  view  to  take,  nor  the  strongest.  For  that 
reason  I  have  voted  for  this  proposition,  though  not  fully  meeting  my 
views.  .  .  .  All  this  weighing  and  balancing  may  turn  out  to 
be  perfectly  useless.  The  mere  fact  of  their  selection  under  the  cir- 
cumstances would  of  itself  tend  to  make  them  non-partisan."  The 
day  again  ended  without  an  agreement. 

On  the  following  day  a  proposition  originating  with  Mr.  Hewitt 
was  made,  providing  that  Justice  Clifford,  a  Democrat,  and  Justice 
Swayne,  a  Republican,  should  name  two  Commissioners,  and  these 
four  should  name  the  fifth.  This  proposition  was  summarily  re- 
jected. Finally  it  was  determined  to  take  the  Associate  Justices 
from  the  First,  Third,  Eighth,  and  Ninth : Judicial  Circuits,  and  let 
these  four  name  a  fifth  member  of  the  Supreme  Court  to  sit  upon  the 
Commission.  "  This  plan,"  said  the  Vermont  Senator,  "  has  the 
merit  of  being  based  on  geographical  considerations,  Justice  Clif- 
ford representing  New  England,  Justice  Strong  the  Middle  States, 
Justice  Miller  the  Northwest,  and  Justice  Field  the  Pacific  slope." 
This  plan  avoided  the  selection  of  the  judges  by  name,  and  received 
the  sanction  of  the  Committees.  Before  the  Committees  adjourned 
for  the  day,  after  reaching  an  agreement,  Mr.  Edmunds  and  Mr. 
Thurman  were  directed  to  prepare  an  address  to  accompany  the  sub- 
mission of  the  bill  to  Congress.  When  they  again  met  the  next 
morning,  January  18,  1877,  for  the  last  time,  the  address  was  consid- 
ered and  adopted,  with  such  changes  as  were  considered  necessary. 
The  critical  Representative  from  Massachusetts,  Mr.  Hoar,  raised  an 
objection  to  the  phrase  that  "  it  is  comparatively  unimportant  who  is 
President."  "  In  my  opinion,"  he  said,  "  it  is  of  immense  impor- 
tance which  party  rules  the  country."  Senator  Conkling  announced 
the  broad  proposition  that  it  is  "  always  unwise,  in  large  transactions, 


356  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

to  do  anything  unnecessary."  He  then  proceeded  to  criticise  the 
phrase  in  the  address,  "  If  such  jurisdiction  is  not  invested  by  the 
Constitution,  this  bill  creates  it."  He  maintained  that  no  jurisdic- 
tion was  created  by  the  Constitution  which  is  not  vested  somewhere. 
"  Can  we,"  he  asked,  "  by  a  legislative  act  create  a  jurisdiction?  We 
may  create  a  tribunal  to  exercise  jurisdiction;  but  can  we  create  the 
jurisdiction  itself?  "  "  This  report,"  he  said,  "  is  to  be  put  under  a 
microscope.  It  is  to  be  examined  with  great  care.  No  man  can 
vote  for  this  bill  unless  he  believes  the  power  bestowed  exists  some- 
where." Mr.  Hoar  suggested  the  following  phraseology:  "  If  the 
Constitution,  requiring  the  exercise  of  this  jurisdiction,  does  not 
designate  a  tribunal  or  officer  to  execute  it,  this  bill  provides  such  a 
tribunal."  "  I  prefer,"  replied  the  New  York  Senator,  "  to  say  just 
what  we  mean.  If  wre  have  that  right,  it  is  because  the  Constitu- 
tion requires  both  Houses  to  do  it;  or,  the  Constitution  not  making 
such  requirements,  expects  the  law-making  power  to  provide  it.  This 
is  our  pediment.  Take  that  from  under  us  and  we  are  gone.  This 
bill  goes  to  the  theory  of  regulating  and  adjusting  the  power  already 
held.  Mr.  Hoar's  amendment  implies  that  the  law-making  power  is 
vested  in  the  tribunal.  That  is  not  my  theory.  Mine  is  that  the 
Constitution  requires  Congress  to  declare  a  President.  The  two 
Houses  employ  this  tribunal  as  an  auxiliary,  as  eyes  and  hands.  We 
do  not  delegate  this  power.  We  keep  it  all.  This  is  our  own  minis- 
tration." Senator  Bayard  closed  the  discussion. 

The  bill  went  through  the  two  Houses  with  impetuous  promptitude. 
Mr.  Cox  wrote  afterward:  "  Its  chief  opponents  in  the  Senate  were 
Mr.  Morton  and  Mr.  Sherman,  and  in  the  House,  Mr.  Garfield,  of 
Ohio,  and  Mr.  Mills,  of  Texas.  Almost  the  first  response  to  the  sub- 
mission of  the  bill  came  from  Massachusetts,  where  a  prolonged 
struggle  over  Senator  Boutwell's  seat  was  suddenly  ended  in  the  tri- 
umph of  Mr.  Hoar.  Speeches  of  rare  eloquence  and  power  were  made 
for  the  bill  in  both  Senate  and  House.  Mr.  Conkling  spoke  for  two 
days.  Among  other  things,  he  riddled  to  shreds  the  pretension  that 
the  Vice-President  had  the  right  to  '  count '  the  electoral  votes. 
Senator  Hill,  of  Georgia,  made  a  speech  of  unusual  cogency.  It 
breathed  throughout  the  true  patriotic  spirit.  He  favored  the  ex- 
pedient with  all  his  acumen  and  eloquence.  His  enthusiasm  kindled 
a  lambent  flame  charged  with  electric  force.  As  he  reached  his 
peroration  he  was  handed  a  telegram,  announcing  that  the  protracted 
contest  for  Senator  in  his  State  had  just  ended  in  the  senatorial  toga 
being  again  placed  on  his  shoulders.  The  popular  tide  was  now  all 
one  way.  It  was  irresistible.  What  would  be  the  consummation? 
The  Democrats  felt  secure  in  the  justice  of  their  cause.  No  matter 


THE   ELECTORAL   COUNT.  357 

to  them  who  might  be  the  fifth  judge  whose  choice  was  to  determine 
the  party  bias  of  the  Commission.  No  one  doubted,  however,  that 
the  choice  of  the  fifth  judge  would  fall  upon  Mr.  Justice  Davis.  He 
was  the  only  one  left  on  the  bench  on  whom  the  two  Democrats  and 
the  two  Republican  judges  could  possibly  unite.  He  was,  to  be  sure, 
an  unknown  element,  but  notwithstanding  this,  the  Democrats  had 
more  confidence  in  his  impartiality  than  the  Republicans  seemed  to 
have." 

How  the  action  of  a  Commission  so  equipoised  might  have  eventu- 
ated must  be  a  subject  for  speculation,  and  speculation  only.  Justice 
Davis,  whose  political  leanings  were  so  fruitful  a  theme  of  discus- 
sion in  the  committees,  and  in  whom  centered  alike  the  hopes  of 
Democrats  and  the  fears  of  Republicans,  was  not  born  to  sit  on  the 
Electoral  Commission.  The  bill  was  passed  in  the  Senate  on  January 
24  by  47  ayes  to  17  nays,  and  by  the  House  two  days  later  by  191  ayes 
to  86  nays.  The  mode  prescribed  in  the  act  for  selecting  the  Elec- 
toral Commission  was  by  viva  voce  vote  in  the  Senate  and  House. 
The  tacit  understanding  was  that  the  Senate  should  appoint  three 
Republicans  and  two  Democrats,  and  the  House  three  Democrats  and 
two  Republicans.  This  was  done  as  follows: 

SENATORS — George  F.  Edmunds,  Oliver  P.  Morton,  and  Frederick 
T.  Frelinghuysen,  Republicans;  and  Thomas  F.  Bayard  and  Allen  G. 
Thurman,  Democrats. 

REPRESENTATIVES — Henry  B.  Payne,  Eppa  Hunton,  and  Josiah  G. 
Abbott,  Democrats;  and  James  A.  Garfield  and  George  F.  Hoar,  Re- 
publicans. 

The  four  Justices  of  the  Supreme  Court  absolutely  appointed  by  the 
terms  of  the  act  were  Nathan  Clifford,  Samuel  F.  Miller,  Stephen 
J.  Field,  and  William  Strong.  It  was  considered  certain,  when  the 
Senate  voted  on  January  24,  that  Justice  Davis  would  be  the  choice 
of  his  four  judicial  associates,  but  on  the  following  day,  the  25th,  he 
was  elected  a  Senator  of  the  United  States  by  the  Illinois  Legisla- 
ture. Chosen  by  a  Democratic  Legislature,  and  reckoned  as  a  Demo- 
crat, there  would  have  been  manifest  impropriety  in  his  selection,  in 
view  of  the  previous  contention  of  the  Democratic  members  of  the 
House  Committee  that  he  was  not  a  Democrat.  Justice  Davis's  ac- 
ceptance of  an  election  so  unexpected  and  so  fatuous  from  the  Demo- 
cratic standpoint,  removed  him  from  the  list  of  possibilities  for  the 
fifth  judgeship  of  the  Commission,  and  the  four  judges  designated  by 
the  act  unanimously  agreed  upon  Justice  Joseph  P.  Bradley. 

The  Electoral  Commission  was  organized  January  31,  1877.  The 
next  day  the  two  Houses  of  Congress  met  in  the  Representatives' 
Chamber  to  count  the  vote.  The  galleries  were  packed  with  a  vast 


358  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

multitude  of  spectators,  black  and  white.  In  the  corridors  there  was 
an  eager,  pushing  throng  of  people  from  every  State  in  the  Union. 
The  Capitol  palpitated  with  suppressed  excitement.  When  the  two 
Houses  were  seated  Senator  Thomas  W.  Ferry,  of  Michigan,  presi- 
dent pro  tcmpore  of  the  Senate,  took  the  chair.  Speaker  Randall  sat 
by  his  side.  The  certificates  containing  the  electoral  votes  of  the 
States  were  opened,  one  by  one,  in  alphabetical  order  by  acting  Vice- 
President  Ferry,  and  by  him  handed  to  the  tellers  to  be  announced 
and  recorded.  The  votes  of  Alabama  and  Arkansas  were  recorded 
for  Tilden.  Then  California,  Colorado,  and  Connecticut  were  counted 
for  Hayes.  When  the  three  votes  of  Delaware  were  set  down  for 
Tilden  there  was  a  hush  of  expectation  that  meant  that  the  critical 
moment  had  come.  Florida  was  reached.  The  chair  announced 
two  sets  of  returns,  saying  that  under  the  law  these  must  go  to  the 
Electoral  Commission.  The  joint  convention  then  took  a  recess  to 
await  the  action  of  the  Commission,  and  the  interest  was  transferred 
to  the  historic  chamber  occupied  by  the  Supreme  Court. 

The  fifteen  members  of  the  Electoral  Commission  occupied  the 
bench  of  the  Justices  of  the  Supreme  Court.  The  five  judges  formed 
the  center  of  the  group,  Justice  Clifford,  the  senior  judge,  presiding. 
On  the  right  of  the  judges  were  the  five  Senators,  and  on  the  left  the 
five  Representatives.  Before  this  august  tribunal  was  an  array  of 
counsel  eminent  for  forensic  ability  and  learning.  On  the  Repub- 
lican side  were  William  M.  Evarts,  Stanley  Matthews,  E.  W. 
Stoughton,  and  Samuel  Shellabarger.  In  behalf  of  the  Democratic 
claim  there  was  an  array  still  more  formidable  and  distinguished. 
It  comprised  Jeremiah  S.  Black,  Charles  O'Conor,  John  A.  Campbell, 
formerly  of  the  Supreme  Court;  Lyman  Trumbull,  Montgomery  Blair, 
Ashbel  Green,  George  Hoadly,  Richard  T.  Merrick,  William  C.  Whit- 
ney, and  Alexander  Porter  Morse. 

The  allegations  in  behalf  of  the  Tilden  returns  were  that  the  Hayes 
electors  were  not  duly  chosen;  that  the  certificate  of  the  Governor  to 
their  election  was  the  result  of  a  conspiracy;  that  its  validity,  if  any, 
had  been  annulled  by  a  subsequent  certificate  by  the  Governor,  to  the 
effect  that  the  Tilden  electors  were  chosen;  that  a  court  decision  made 
certain  the  election  of  the  Democratic  electors;  and  that  one  of  the 
Republican  electors  was  a  Shipping  Commissioner  under  appoint- 
ment from  the  Government  of  the  United  States  at  the  time  of  his 
election,  and  was  therefore  disqualified.  The  Republican  objection 
to  the  Tilden  votes  was  that  the  returns  were  not  duly  authenticated 
by  any  person  holding  at  the  time  an  office  under  the  State  of 
Florida.  These  questions  were  argued  at  great  length,  the  case 
claiming  the  attention  of  the  Commission  until  February  7,  when  it 


THE   ELECTORAL   COUNT.  359 

was  decided.  The  decision  was  that  it  was  not  competent  for  the 
Commission  "  to  go  into  evidence  aliunde  the  papers  opened  by  the 
President  of  the  Senate,  to  prove  that  other  persons  than  those  regu- 
larly certified  by  the  Governor  "  were  appointed.  With  reference  to 
the  case  of  the  elector  alleged  to  have  been  disqualified,  it  was  de- 
cided that  the  evidence  did  not  show  that  he  held  an  office  on  the  day 
of  his  appointment.  Each  of  the  fifteen  members  of  the  Commission 
read  his  opinion  in  secret  session,  fourteen  of  them  being  evenly  di- 
vided— seven  in  favor  of  the  Tilden  electors,  and  seven  in  favor  of 
the  Hayes  electors.  This  placed  the  final  responsibility  for  the  de- 
cision upon  Justice  Bradley,  who  was  the  last  to  be  heard.  His  dec- 
laration that  his  vote  must  be  given  for  counting  the  Florida  vote  for 
Hayes  divided  the  Commission  on  party  lines,  eight  to  seven.  When 
the  result  was  known  the  disappointment  and  chagrin  of  the  Demo- 
crats were  exceedingly  keen  and  bitter.  They  at  once  declared  that 
they  were  being  defrauded,  that  Mr.  Hayes  was  to  obtain  title  against 
the  law  and  the  evidence,  that  Hayes  was  to  occupy  the  place  that 
the  people  had  voted  to  confer  upon  Tilden.  Justice  Bradley  was 
made  a  target  for  abuse  more  virulent  than  had  been  exhibited  in 
assailing  a  Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  since  the  attempt  to  impeach 
Samuel  Chase  in  1805.  The  men  who  had  supported  the  Commis- 
sion when  they  expected  to  profit  by  it  through  Justice  Davis  now 
denounced  it  because  it  had  failed  them  through  Justice  Bradley. 
"  The  Democrats  of  the  Commission,"  wrote  Mr.  Cox,  "  felt  the 
humiliation  of  this  departure  from  constitutional  methods.  Judge 
Bradley  would  never  have  been  guilty  of  such  stultification  unless  he 
had  deliberately  decided  to  accept  its  full  consequences  and  to 
gather  its  substantial  fruits.  Such  an  excoriation  as  Mr.  Payne,  the 
Nestor  of  the  House  Commission,  gave  this  unjust  judge  for  his  be- 
trayal of  the  high  trust  reposed  in  him  has  probably  not  been  heard 
since  Sheridan's  philippic  against  Hastings.  Sadder,  but  wiser  men, 
were  the  Democratic  i  seven  '  when  they  marched  out  of  the  Supreme 
Court  room  that  memorable  afternoon."  The  outcry  thus  begun  was 
repeated  so  continuously  and  persistently  that  the  mass  of  the 
Democratic  party  was  made  to  believe  that  the  Electoral  Commis- 
sion was  a  trap;  that  Mr.  Tilden  was  a  victim  of  a  conspiracy;  that 
Mr.  Hayes  was  to  be  made  a  fraudulent  President.  Even  Justice 
Field  joined  in  the  denunciations,  and  in  the  condemnation  of  the 
tribunal  of  which  he  was  a  member.  "  The  country,"  he  said,  "  may 
submit  to  the  result,  but  it  will  never  cease  to  regard  our  action  as 
unjust,  and  as  calculated  to  sap  the  foundations  of  public  morality." 

The  eight  members  of  the  Commission  who  certified  the  result  were: 
Justices  Miller,  Strong,  and  Bradley;  Senators  Edmunds,  Morton, 


360  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

and  Frelinghuyseu,  and  Representatives  Hoar  and  Garfield.  The 
two  Houses  again  met  on  February  10  and  received  this  decision. 
Formal  objection  was  made  to  the  decision  of  the  Electoral  Com- 
mission, and  the  Houses  separated  to  consider  it.  The  Senate,  by  a 
strict  party  vote,  decided  that  the  votes  should  be  counted.  The 
House  of  Representatives,  by  a  vote  which  was  on  party  lines,  ex- 
cept that  one  Democrat  voted  with  the  Republicans,  voted  that  the 
electoral  votes  given  by  the  Tilden  electors  should  be  counted.  The 
two  Houses  not  having  agreed  in  rejecting  the  decision  of  the  Com- 
mission, it  stood,  and  the  joint  session  was  resumed.  The  votes  of 
Florida  having  been  recorded,  the  count  proceeded  until  Louisiana 
was  reached.  This  was  the  second  case  for  the  Electoral  Commis- 
sion, and  another  recess  was  taken  to  await  the  decision. 

The  Commission  met  on  February  12  to  hear  and  determine  the 
Louisiana  case.  As  in  the  case  of  Florida,  the  Republican  objec- 
tions to  the  Tilden  returns  were  brief  and  formal.  It  was  claimed 
that  the  Kellogg  government  had  been  recognized  by  every  depart- 
ment of  the  Government  of  the  United  States  as  the  true  govern- 
ment of  Louisiana,  and  that  the  certificates  of  the  Hayes  electors  cer- 
tified by  him  were  in  due  form.  The  Democrats  made  a  great  variety 
of  objections  to  the  Hayes  votes.  They  asserted  that  John  McEnery 
was  the  lawful  Governor  of  the  State;  that  the  certificates  asserting 
the  appointment  of  the  Hayes  electors  were  false;  and  that  the  can- 
vass of  votes  by  the  Returning  Board  was  without  jurisdiction  and 
void.  Special  objection  was  made  to  three  of  the  electors:  two  of 
them  as  being  disqualified,  under  the  Constitution,  and  the  third, 
Governor  Kellogg,  because  he  certified  to  his  own  election.  Among 
the  arguments,  one  of  the  most  eloquent  was  made  by  Mr.  Carpenter, 
the  former  Republican  Senator  from  Wisconsin,  who  disclaimed  ap- 
pearing for  Mr.  Tilden.  "  He  is  a  gentleman,"  Mr.  Carpenter  said, 
"  whose  acquaintance  I  have  not  the  honor  of;  with  whom  I  have  no 
sympathy;  against  whom  I  voted  on  the  seventh  day  of  November 
last;  and  if  this  tribunal  could  order  a  new  trial,  I  should  vote  against 
him  again,  believing,  as  I  do,  that  the  accession  of  the  Democratic 
party  to  power  in  this  country  to-day  would  be  the  greatest  calamity 
that  could  befall  the  people,  except  one;  and  that  one  greater  calam- 
ity would  be  to  keep  him  out  by  fraud  and  falsehood."  After  this  dis- 
claimer, he  added:  "  I  appear  here  for  ten  thousand  legal  voters  of 
Louisiana,  who,  without  accusation  or  proof,  indictment  or  trial, 
notice  or  hearing,  have  been  disfranchised  by  four  villains,  incor- 
porated with  perpetual  session,  whose  official  title  is  '  the  Returning 
Board  of  Louisiana.' "  An  attempt  was  made  to  introduce  testimony 
before  the  Commission,  the  propositions  including  offers  to  prove  that 


THE   ELECTORAL   COUNT.  361 

ten  thousand  votes  cast  for  Tilden  had  been  discarded  by  the  Re- 
turning Board  in  order  to  count  in  Mr.  Hayes;  to  show  that  the  Re- 
turning Board  was  unconstitutional  and  its  acts  void;  that  it  was 
not  legally  constituted,  and  had  no  jurisdiction;  and  that  statements 
as  to  riot,  tumult,  and  other  wrongs  were  forged  by  the  Board.  All 
these  offers,  and  a  number  of  others,  were  ruled  out  by  the  Com- 
mission by  the  usual  vote  of  eight  to  seven,  and  the  Electoral  vote 
of  Louisiana  was  ordered  to  be  counted  for  Hayes. 

When  the  decision  in  the  Louisiana  case  was  submitted  to  the  joint 
convention  on  February  19,  objections  were  made,  and  the  two  Houses 
separated  to  act  upon  them.  The  Senate  voted  by  41  to  28  that  the 
decision  should  stand — a  strict  party  vote — but  in  the  House  there 
was  a  slight  Republican  defection,  two  Republicans  voting  with  the 
Democrats.  One  of  these  was  Professor  Seelye,  afterward  President 
of  Amherst  College,  who  declared  his  inability  to  see  the  justice  of 
counting  the  vote  of  Louisiana  for  either  Hayes  or  Tilden.  The  vote 
was  173  against,  to  99  in  favor,  of  accepting  the  result. 

On  the  20th  the  two  Houses  resumed  the  count,  but  only  the  re- 
turns from  Maryland  and  Massachusetts  were  disposed  of  without  dis- 
pute, objection  being  made  by  the  Democrats  that  one  of  the  Repub- 
lican electors  of  Michigan  held  a  Federal  office  at  the  time  of  his  elec- 
tion. This  objection  was  overruled  by  each  House  separately,  and 
then  the  count  proceeded.  Similar  action  was  taken  in  regard  to  an 
elector  for  Nevada.  The  next  dispute  was  over  the  Oregon  post- 
master whose  election  had  been  set  aside  by  the  Democratic  Gov- 
ernor. As  this  was  a  case  for  the  Electoral  Commission,  there  was 
another  recess  to  allow  it  to  be  heard.  The  Commission  decided 
unanimously  against  the  made-up  vote  of  the  electors,  which  gave 
one  vote  to  Tilden,  but  again  divided  eight  to  seven  on  counting  the 
entire  vote  of  the  State  for  Hayes.  The  results  in  the  two  Houses 
were  the  usual  divisions  on  party  lines.  Objection  was  made  to  one 
of  the  Pennsylvania  electors  that  he  was  a  Centennial  Commissioner. 
The  other  electors,  regarding  him  as  ineligible,  treated  the  place  as 
vacant,  and  chose  another  person  to  fill  it.  The  Senate  agreed,  with- 
out a  division,  to  a  resolution  that  the  vote  be  counted.  The  House 
rejected  it,  135  to  119,  the  affirmative  consisting  entirely  of  Demo- 
crats, and  the  negative  containing  only  15  of  that  party.  The  full 
vote  of  Pennsylvania  was  accordingly  counted  under  the  law,  the 
two  Houses  not  having  agreed  to  reject.  Rhode  Island  furnished  a 
case  not  very  different,  but  the  two  Houses  this  time  concurred 
unanimously  in  deciding  that  the  disputed  vote  should  be  counted. 
This  brought  the  count  to  South  Carolina,  the  last  of  the  cases  for  the 
Electoral  Commission. 


362  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

The  dispute  over  the  South  Carolina  returns  rested  on  the  claim 
of  the  Democrats  that  no  legal  election  had  been  held  in  the  State, 
and  that  the  army  and  the  Deputy  United  States  Marshals  stationed 
at  and  near  the  polls  prevented  the  free  exercise  of  the  right  of  suf- 
frage. The  Republicans  asserted  that  the  Tilden  board  was  not  duly 
appointed,  and  that  the  certificates  were  wholly  defective  in  form, 
and  lacking  the  necessary  official  certification.  The  papers  having 
been  referred  to  the  Electoral  Commission,  that  body  met  again  on 
the  26th.  Senator  Thurman  was  obliged  to  retire  from  service  upon 
the  Commission  on  account  of  illness,  and  Senator  Francis  Kernan 
was  substituted  for  him.  After  a  day  devoted  to  arguments,  the 
Commission  voted  unanimously  that  the  Tilden  electors  were  not  the 
true  electors  of  South  Carolina,  and,  by  the  old  majority  of  eight  to 
seven,  that  the  Hayes  electors  were  the  constitutional  electors  duly 
appointed.  The  two  Houses  separated  upon  objections  to  the  de- 
cision of  the  Commission,  and  as  before,  the  Senate  sustained  the  find- 
ing, while  the  House  voted  to  reject  it. 

There  were  two  further  objections,  the  first  to  a  vote  cast  by  an 
elector  for  Vermont,  substituted  for  an  ineligible  person  who  had 
been  chosen  by  the  people,  on  which  the  result  was  the  same  as  in 
the  other  similar  cases;  and  finally,  a  case  of  the  same  kind  in  Wis- 
consin, which  was  decided  in  like  manner.  The  Vermont  case  was 
complicated  by  the  presentation  by  Mr.  Hewitt,  of  New  York,  of  a 
packet  purporting  to  contain  a  return  of  electoral  votes  given  in 
Vermont.  The  President  of  the  Senate  having  received  no  such  vote, 
nor  any  vote  different  from  that  of  the  regularly  chosen  Hayes  elec- 
tors, refused  to  receive  it.  The  Wisconsin  case  was  simple  enough. 
One  of  the  electors  was  a  pension  surgeon  under  the  United  States, 
and  it  was  claimed  that  he  was  ineligible.  The  Senate  voted  to  sus- 
tain the  eligibility  of  the  elector,  but  the  House  was  still  in  session 
on  March  2,  without  result,  when  the  doorkeeper  announced  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States  for  the  joint  convention  of  the  two 
Houses.  The  failure  of  the  House  of  Representatives  to  act  was  not 
a  bar  to  the  count.  The  vote  of  Wisconsin  was  counted,  and  the 
count  of  the  thirty-eight  States  being  concluded,  the  result  was  an- 
nounced, 185  electoral  votes  for  Hayes  and  Wheeler,  184  votes  for 
Tilden  and  Hendricks.  After  the  Senate  had  filed  out  of  the  hall, 
the  House,  which  had  been  in  continuous  session  for  thirty-one  days, 
adjourned. 

A  sequel  to  the  Electoral  count  was  the  discovery  of  the  dis- 
patches in  cipher  that  had  passed  between  Mr.  Tilden's  alleged  agents 
in  New  York  and  persons  interested  in  securing  electoral  votes  for 
Tilden  in  South  Carolina,  Florida,  and  Oregon.  During  an  inquiry 


THE   ELECTORAL   COUNT.  363 

into  the  Oregon  case  by  a  Senate  Committee  some  thirty  thousand 
political  telegrams  (mainly  in  cipher)  had  been  brought  into  the  cus- 
tody of  the  committee  by  subpoenas  to  the  Western  Union  Telegraph 
Company.  The  great  mass  of  these  telegrams  was  returned  to  the 
company  without  translation.  About  seven  hundred,  however,  had 
been  retained  by  an  employee  of  the  Committee.  These  dispatches, 
when  translated,  revealed  astonishing  attempts  at  bribery  in  order 
to  secure  Tilden  electors.  Smith  M.  Weed,  a  "  visiting  statesman  " 
from  New  York  to  South  Carolina,  telegraphed  to  W.  T.  Pelton,  Mr. 
Tilden's  nephew,  November  16,  1876,  that  "  the  Board  demanded 
$75,000  for  giving  us  two  or  three  electors,"  and  that  "  something  be- 
yond will  be  needful  for  the  interceder,  say  $10,000."  Two  days  later 
Mr.  Weed  telegraphed:  "  Majority  of  Board  have  been  secured.  Cost 
is  $80,000;  one  parcel  to  be  sent  of  $65,000,  one  of  $10,000,  one  of 
$5,000;  all  to  be  given  in  $500  or  $1,000  bills;  notes  to  be  accepted  as 
parties  accept,  and  given  up  upon  votes  of  South  Carolina  being 
given  to  Tilden's  friends.  Do  this  at  once,  and  have  cash  ready  to 
reach  Baltimore  Sunday  night."  But  before  the  money  could  be  ob- 
tained and  taken  to  South  Carolina  the  Canvassing  Board  reported 
the  returns  to  the  Court,  showing  on  their  face  the  election  of  Hayes 
electors.  This  put  an  end  to  the  attempt  at  bribing  the  Canvassing 
Board,  but  not  to  the  efforts  to  secure  South  Carolina  electors  for 
Tilden.  In  Florida,  Manton  Marble  and  C.  W.  Woolley,  of  New  York, 
acted  with  Mr.  Pelton.  On  November  22  Marble  telegraphed  to  Pel- 
ton:"  Woolley  asked  me  to  say,  let  forces  be  got  together  immediately 
for  contingencies  either  here  or  in  Louisiana."  This  followed  a  few 
days  later:  "  Have  just  received  a  proposition  to  hand  over  at  any 
time  required,  Tilden  decision  of  Board  and  certificate  of  Governor, 
for  $200,000."  When  Pelton  answered,  "  Proposition  too  high,"  Mar- 
ble and  Woolley  made  renewed  efforts,  and  found  that  an  elector  could 
be  had  for  f  50,000.  As  Pelton  decided  that  "  they  could  not  draw 
until  the  vote  of  the  elector  was  received,"  this  attempt  at  bribery 
also  failed.  In  this  correspondence  Mr.  Marble  figured  as  "  Moses." 
His  last  message  to  Pelton  was  in  these  words:  "  Proposition  failed. 
Finished  responsibility  as  Moses.  Last  night  Woolley  found  me, 
and  said  he  had  nothing,  which  I  knew  already.  Tell  Tilden  to  saddle 
Blackstone."  The  Oregon  negotiations  were  conducted  by  J.  N.  H. 
Patrick,  who  was  deputed  for  the  work  by  George  L.  Miller,  a 
member  of  the  Democratic  National  Committee  for  Nebraska.  On 
November  28,  Patrick  telegraphed  Mr.  Pelton  that  Governor  Grover 
would  issue  a  certificate  of  election  to  one  Democratic  elector  (Cro- 
nin),  and  added,  "  Must  purchase  Republican  elector  to  recognize  and 
act  with  the  Democrat,  and  secure  vote  to  prevent  trouble.  Deposit 


364  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 


),000  to  my  credit."  This  telegram  was  indorsed  "  Kelly."  Mr.  Pel- 
ton  replied  to  Mr.  Patrick,  "  If  you  will  make  obligation  contingent 
on  result  in  March,  it  will  be  done,  and  incremable  slightly  if  neces- 
sary," and  was  answered  that  the  fee  could  not  be  made  contingent; 
whereupon  the  sum  of  f  8,000  was  deposited  to  his  credit  on  December 
1,  in  New  York,  but  intelligence  of  it  reached  Oregon  too  late  to  carry 
out  any  attempt  to  corrupt  a  Republican  elector.  Thus  it  will  be  seen 
that  a  Presidential  canvass  that  began  with  loud  protests  of  the  ne- 
cessity of  reform  was  supplemented  by  persistent  and  shameless 
efforts  to  bribe  the  electors  of  three  States. 


IV. 

ADMINISTRATION  OF  PRESIDENT  HAYES. 

The  Cabinet — Secretary  Sherman  and  Resumption — Civil-Service  Re- 
form— Early  Appointments  and  Removals — The  Spoils  System 
—Thomas  A.  Jenckes,  the  Pioneer  Civil-Service  Reformer — The 
Commission  of  1871 — Competitive  Examinations  Introduced — 
Restriction  of  Chinese  Immigration — Propositions  Affecting  the 
Election  of  President  and  Vice-President,  and  the  Method  of 
Counting  the  Electoral  Votes — Rule  Adopted  in  1881. 


HE  Administration  of  President  Hayes,  coming  into  power 
under  the  conditions  described  in  the  preceding  chapter, 
could  not  fail  to  excite  and  receive  the  bitter  hostility  of 
the  Democratic  party.  The  Electoral  count  was  treated 
by  the  Democratic  press  and  Democratic  politicians  as  a  conspiracy, 
and  Hayes  was  regarded  merely  as  a  de  facto  Executive.  Even  his 
surrender  to  the  South  by  the  withdrawal  of  the  troops  from  the 
Southern  States  failed  to  soften  the  bitterness  of  Democratic  de- 
nunciation, while  it  estranged  many  radical  Republicans.  Senator 
Conkling  was  conspicuous  in  opposition,  as  were  also  Senator 
Logan  and  the  younger  Cameron  when  he  entered  the  Senate.  The 
Cabinet  was  a  strong  one,  likely  to  be  helpful  in  making  a  popular 
administration.  With  such  advisers  as  William  M.  Evarts,  Sec- 
retary of  State;  John  Sherman,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury;  and 
George  W.  McCrary,  Secretary  of  War,  the  three  leading  Depart- 
ments of  the  Government  were  under  as  able  direction  as  in  any 
previous  administration.  The  other  selections — Richard  W.Thompson 
as  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  Carl  Schurz  as  Secretary  of  the  Interior, 
David  M.  Key  as  Postmaster-General,  and  Charles  Devens  as  At- 
torney-General— were  less  happily  made,  but  none  of  them  excited 
violent  antagonisms.  General  Schurz,  it  is  true,  had  bitterly  as- 
sailed President  Grant  in  the  Senate,  but  he  was  not  yet  regarded  as 
hopelessly  out  of  sympathy  with  the  party.  That  the  Cabinet  was 
chosen  to  foster  the  growing  independent  sentiment  in  the  Repub- 
lican ranks  must  be  admitted,  but  in  this  respect  it  was  not  able  to 
exert  any  marked  political  influence.  Upon  the  whole,  the  tendency 
of  the  Hayes  Administration  was  to  soften  party  asperities,  although 
these  broke  out  with  increased  virulence  upon  the  accession  of  Presi- 
dent Hayes's  successor. 


366  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

The  most  noteworthy  achievement  of  the  Administration  of  Presi- 
dent Hayes  was  the  resumption  of  specie  payments,  January  1,  1879. 
Generous  credit  must  be  accorded  to  Secretary  Sherman  for  its  ac- 
complishment in  despite  of  Republican  doubts  and  Democratic  oppo- 
sition. In  the  Senate  Mr.  Sherman  was  the  principal  advocate  of 
the  Resumption  Act  of  1875.  Not  a  single  Democratic  member  of  the 
Senate  supported  the  measure,  and  two  Republicans — Sprague,  of 
Rhode  Island,  and  Tipton,  of  Nebraska — voted  against  it;  and  in  the 
House  fully  twenty  Republicans  opposed  it,  some  like  Judge  Kelley, 
of  Pennsylvania,  who  regarded  it  as  premature,  and  others  like  the 
Messrs.  Hoar  and  Mr.  Dawes,  of  Massachusetts,  and  General  Haw- 
ley,  of  Connecticut,  who  thought  the  time  set  for  resumption  too  far 
in  the  future,  and  the  means  provided  for  its  accomplishment  inade- 
quate. The  demand  for  the  repeal  of  the  Resumption  Act  was  made 
a  cardinal  principle  in  the  Democratic  platform  of  1876,  and  it 
would  have  been  repealed  by  the  45th  Congress  if  the  Democrats  had 
had  a  majority  in  both  Houses.  Among  those  against  repeal  in 
1878  was  General  Garfield.  "  Only  twelve  years  have  passed,"  he 
said,  "  for  as  late  as  1865  this  House,  with  but  six  dissenting  votes, 
resolved  again  to  stand  by  the  old  ways  and  bring  the  country  back 
to  sound  money — only  twelve  years  have  passed,  and  what  do  we 
find?  We  find  a  group  of  theorists  and  doctrinaires,  who  look  upon 
the  wisdom  of  the  fathers  as  foolishness.  We  find  some  who  advo- 
cate what  they  call  'absolute  money';  who  declare  that  a  piece  of 
paper  stamped  a  '  dollar '  is  a  dollar;  that  gold  and  silver  are  a  part 
of  the  barbarism  of  the  past,  which  ought  to  be  forever  abandoned.  We 
hear  them  declaring  that  resumption  is  a  delusion  and  a  snare.  We 
hear  them  declaring  that  the  eras  of  prosperity  are  the  eras  of  paper 
money.  They  point  us  to  all  times  of  inflation  as  periods  of  blessing 
to  the  people  and  prosperity  to  business,  and  they  ask  us  no  more  to 
vex  their  ears  with  any  allusions  to  the  old  standard — the  money  of 
the  Constitution.  Let  the  wild  swarm  of  financial  literature  that  has 
sprung  into  life  within  the  last  twelve  years  witness  how  widely  and 
how  far  we  have  drifted.  We  have  lost  our  old  moorings,  and  have 
thrown  overboard  our  old  compass;  we  sail  by  alien  stars,  looking  not 
for  the  haven,  but  are  afloat  on  a  harborless  sea.  Suppose  you  undo 
the  work  that  Congress  has  attempted,  to  resume  specie  payment, 
what  will  result?  You  will  depreciate  the  value  of  the  greenback. 
Suppose  it  falls  ten  cents  on  the  dollar?  You  will  have  destroyed 
ten  per  cent,  of  the  value  of  every  deposit  in  the  savings  banks,  ten 
per  cent,  of  every  life  insurance  policy  and  fire  insurance  policy,  of 
every  pension  to  the  soldier,  and  of  every  day's  wages  of  every  laborer 
in  the  nation.  The  trouble  writh  our  greenback  dollar  is  this:  It  has 


ADMINISTRATION   OF   PRESIDENT   HAYES.  367 

two  distinct  functions,  one  a  purchasing  power  and  the  other  a  debt- 
paying  power.  As  a  debt-paying  power  it  is  equal  to  one  hundred 
cents;  that  is,  to  pay  an  old  debt.  A  greenback  dollar  will,  by  law, 
discharge  one  hundred  cents  of  debt.  But  no  law  can  give  it 
purchasing  power  in  the  general  market  of  the  world,  unless  it  rep- 
resents a  known  standard  of  coin  value.  Now,  what  we  want  is, 
that  these  two  qualities  of  our  greenback  dollar  shall  be  made  equal- 
its  debt-paying  power  and  its  general  purchasing  power.  When  these 
are  equal  the  problem  of  our  currency  is  solved,  and  not  until  then. 
Summing  it  all  up  in  a  word,  the  struggle  now  pending  in  this  House 
is,  on  the  one  hand,  to  make  the  greenback  better,  and  on  the  other, 
to  make  it  worse.  The  Resumption  Act  is  making  it  better  every 
day.  Repeal  this  act,  and  you  make  it  indefinitely  worse.  In  the 
name  of  every  man  who  wants  his  own  when  he  has  earned  it,  I  de- 
mand that  we  do  not  make  the  wages  of  the  poor  man  shrivel  in  his 
hands  after  he  has  earned  them;  but  that  his  money  shall  be  made 
better  and  better,  until  the  plowholder's  money  shall  be  as  good  as 
the  bondholder's  money;  until  our  standard  is  one,  and  there  is  no 
longer  one  money  for  the  rich  and  another  for  the  poor." 

Fortunately  the  effort  at  repeal,  against  which  Garfield's  earnest 
words  were  directed,  was  defeated ;  for  when  the  day  came  for  Specie 
Resumption  it  was  found  that  the  Treasury  was  fully  prepared,  and 
not  only  was  resumption  achieved  without  the  predicted  disturbances 
of  trade,  but  it  was  followed  by  an  era  of  prosperity  so  immediate  that 
it  was  worth  many  votes  to  the  Republican  party  in  1880. 

A  question  that  was  given  unusual  prominence  during  the  ad- 
ministration of  President  Hayes  was  that  of  Civil-service  Reform. 
The  causes  which  led  to  the  necessity  of  reform  have  an  interest  that 
is  almost  wholly  historical.  When  the  national  Government  was  es- 
tablished the  Federal  judges  were  appointed  for  life,  but  Congress 
decided  that  all  other  officers  were  removable  at  the  will  of  the 
Executive.  Until  after  the  election  of  President  Jefferson,  in  1800, 
there  were  practically  no  removals.  As  the  men  in  office  in  1801 
were  nearly  all  Federalists,  Mr.  Jefferson  conceived  the  idea  that  his 
own  supporters  ought  to  have  a  fair  proportion  of  the  offices.  He 
accordingly  began  making  removals,  and  during  his  two  administra- 
tions, made  forty-seven,  Federalists  being  replaced  by  Republicans, 
as  the  Democrats  were  then  called.  Under  his  successors,  down  to 
1820,  the  removals  reached  only  sixty-five.  An  act  was  passed  May 
15,  1820,  providing  for  a  four  years'  term.  There  was  much  opposi- 
tion to  this  four  years'  law,  the  paternity  of  which  was  imputed  to 
William  H.  Crawford,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  who,  it  was  charged, 
was  using  the  power  of  removal  in  the  Treasury  Department  to  pro- 


368  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

mote  his  efforts  to  make  himself  President  Monroe's  successor.  There 
was  probably  no  substantial  ground  for  the  imputation.  Between 
1820  and  1829  there  were  few  removals,  and  it  was  not  until  the  in- 
auguration of  President  Jackson  that  the  system  of  partisan  appoint- 
ments assumed  large  proportions.  Under  Jackson  and  Van  Buren 
the  power  of  removal  was  used  so  extensively  that  it  became  a  potent 
political  factor,  and  it  was  continued  under  every  successive  adminis- 
tration, without  any  serious  effort  at  its  restriction,  down  to  1865. 

The  pioneer  of  Civil-service  Reform  by  legislative  enactment  was 
Thomas  A.  Jenckes,  of  Rhode  Island.  He  introduced  a  bill  into  the 
House  of  Representatives  "  to  regulate  the  civil  service  of  the  United 
States,"  December  20,  1865.  A  few  months  later  B.  Gratz  Brown,  of 
Missouri,  submitted  a  resolution  to  the  Senate  for  "  such  changes  in 
the  Civil  Service  as  shall  secure  appointments  to  the  same  after 
previous  examinations  by  proper  Boards,  and  as  shall  provide  for 
promotions  on  the  score  of  merit  or  superiority."  In  an  appropria- 
tion bill,  passed  March  3,  1871,  Congress  appended  a  section  author- 
izing the  President  "  to  prescribe  such  regulations  for  the  admission 
of  persons  into  the  Civil  Service  of  the  United  States  as  may  best  pro- 
mote efficiency  therein,  and  ascertain  the  fitness  of  each  candidate  in 
respect  to  age,  health,  character,  knowledge,  and  ability  for  the 
branch  of  service  in  which  he  seeks  to  enter;  and  for  this  purpose  he 
may  employ  suitable  persons  to  conduct  such  inquiries,  prescribe 
their  duties,  and  establish  regulations  for  the  conduct  of  persons  who 
may  receive  appointments  in  the  Civil  Service."  Under  this  author- 
ity, President  Grant  appointed  a  Commission,  composed  of  Messrs. 
George  William  Curtis,  Joseph  Medill,  Alexander  G.  Cattell,  David- 
son A.  Walker,  E.  B.  Ellicott,  Joseph  H.  Blackfan,  and  David  C.  Cox. 
This  Commission  was  unable  to  achieve  any  practical  results  be- 
cause Congress  failed  to  grant  the  requisite  power;  but  President 
Hayes,  without  waiting  for  legislation,  sought  to  make  reforms  in 
the  Civil  Service  by  directing  competitive  examinations  for  certain 
positions,  and  by  forbidding  the  active  participation  of  office-holders 
in  political  campaigns.  This  was  the  first  attempt  to  put  the  prin- 
ciple of  competitive  examinations  into  practice,  and  it  led  to  the 
passage  of  the  Civil-service  Reform  Act  of  1884.  The  system  has 
since  been  extended,  until  at  present  it  has  a  wide  application. 

Another  question  that  assumed  extensive  proportions  during  the 
administration  of  President  Hayes  was  that  of  Chinese  immigration. 
President  Grant  had  previously,  in  his  annual  message  in  1875,  called 
the  attention  of  Congress  to  the  evils  arising  from  the  importation  of 
Chinese  women,  and  to  the  necessity  of  the  restriction  of  the  immi- 
gration of  Chinamen,  who  "  come  under  contracts  with  head  men 


ADMINISTRATION   OF   PRESIDENT   HAYES.  369 

who  own  them  almost  absolutely."  California  was  the  principal 
sufferer  from  the  unrestricted  immigration  of  Chinese,  and  Mr.  Sar- 
gent submitted  a  resolution,  April  20,  1870,  asking  the  Senate  to 
u  recommend  to  the  President  to  cause  negotiations  to  be  entered 
upon  with  the  Chinese  Government  to  effect  such  change  in  the  ex- 
isting treaty  between  the  United  States  and  China  as  will  lawfully 
permit  the  application  of  restrictions  upon  the  great  influx  of  Chinese 
subjects  to  this  country."  This  led  to  a  thorough  examination  of  the 
Chinese  question  by  a  joint  Committee  of  Congress,  and  finally  to  the 
passage  of  a  bill  "  to  restrict  the  immigration  of  Chinese  into  the 
United  States,"  early  in  1879.  President  Hayes  vetoed  the  bill,  be- 
cause it  abrogated  the  Burlingame  treaty  of  1868  without  notice,  and, 
the  veto  being  sustained  by  Congress,  he  opened  negotiations  with 
the  Chinese  Empire,  for  a  modification  of  the  treaty.  To  that  end  he 
dispatched  three  Commissioners  to  China,  gentlemen  of  the  highest  in- 
telligence, adapted  in  every  way  to  the  important  duties  intrusted 
to  them — James  B.  Angell,  President  of  Michigan  University,  also 
appointed  Minister  Plenipotentiary  to  China;  John  F.  Swift,  of  Cal- 
ifornia, and  William  Henry  Trescot,  of  South  Carolina.  They  nego- 
tiated two  treaties — one  relating  to  the  introduction  of  Chinese  into 
the  United  States,  and  the  other  to  general  commercial  relations. 
Both  treaties  were  ratified  by  the  Senate,  and  laws  restricting  the 
immigration  of  Chinese  were  subsequently  enacted.  Under  these 
enactments  Chinese  immigration  has  been  so  restricted  that  it  is  now 
almost  prohibited. 

The  disputed  election  of  1876  led  to  a  large  number  of  propositions 
to  amend  the  Constitution,  and  to  supply  constitutional  omissions 
by  law.  None  of  these  propositions  has  been  passed  upon  by  both 
Houses  of  Congress.  The  propositions  made  during  Mr.  Hayes's  ad- 
ministration— during  the  special  session  of  Congress,  October  15, 
1877,  and  the  regular  session,  which  was  a  continuation  of  it — were 
as  follows: 

Mr.  Cravens,  of  Arkansas,  offered  a  resolution  of  amendment  to  the 
Constitution,  providing  that  the  people  should  vote  directly  for  Presi- 
dent and  Vice-President.  Each  State  was  to  have  a  number  of  Presi- 
dential votes  equal  to  its  electoral  votes  under  the  present  system, 
which  votes  were  to  be  apportioned  in  each  State  among  the  several 
candidates,  in  the  proportion  of  the  votes  given  to  each;  the  legisla- 
ture of  each  State  was  to  direct  the  manner  in  which  the  Presidential 
vote  of  the  State  was  to  be  ascertained;  on  a  day  to  be  fixed  by  Con- 
gress, or,  in  case  of  disagreement  between  the  two  Houses,  on  a  day  to 
be  named  by  the  President,  not  less  than  fifteen  nor  more  than  thirty 
days  before  March  4,  a  joint  meeting  of  the  two  Houses  was  to  be 


370  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

held,  the  President  of  the  Senate  was  to  open  the  Presidential  votes, 
certified  to  by  the  Governor  of  the  State,  and  one  list  from  each 
State  was  then  to  be  counted  under  the  direction  of  the  two  Houses; 
a  majority  of  all  the  Presidential  votes  was  requisite  to  a  choice.  In 
case  no  choice  had  been  made  by  such  a  majority,  then  the  two 
Houses,  in  joint  convention,  were  to  elect  a  President  by  viva  voce 
vote,  each  Senator  and  member  having  one  vote,  the  choice  being 
limited  to  the  two  highest  on  the  list,  unless  two  persons  should 
have  an  equal  number  of  votes  next  to  the  highest;  one  Senator  and  a 
majority  of  the  Representatives  from  two-thirds  of  the  States  were 
to  constitute  a  quorum  for  the  purpose  of  this  election.  In  case  no 
person  should  receive  a  majority  of  the  Congress  so  voting,  the 
President  in  office  was  to  continue  to  be  President  until  a  choice  was 
effected.  The  election  of  Vice-President  was  to  be  made  in  the  same 
manner,  and  at  the  same  time  as  that  of  President.  Whenever  the 
office  of  Vice-President  became  vacant  there  was  to  be  an  election  by 
joint  convention  of  Congress,  within  ten  days  after  the  next  meeting 
of  Congress,  or  within  twenty  days,  if  Congress  should  be  in  session 
at  the  time  the  vacancy  occurred. 

Mr.  Springer,  of  Illinois,  made  a  proposition,  of  which  the  leading 
features  were:  A  Presidential  term  of  six  years,  the  President  not 
to  be  immediately  re-eligible;  each  State  to  have  a  number  of  Presi- 
dential votes  equal  to  its  electoral  votes,  according  to  the  present 
system,  except  that  States  having  but  one  Representative  in  Congress 
were  to  have  but  one  Presidential  vote,  and  States  having  but  two 
Representatives  were  to  have  but  three  votes;  a  direct  vote  for  Presi- 
dent and  Vice-President;  a  canvassing  board  in  each  State  with  min- 
isterial powers  only,  consisting  of  the  Governor,  Secretary  of  State, 
and  Chief  Justice  of  the  highest  court;  to  aggregate  the  votes,  appor- 
tion to  each  candidate  his  proportional  part  of  the  Presidential  votes 
of  the  State,  and  to  make  return  thereof  to  the  President  of  the  Sen- 
ate; the  two  Houses  to  be  in  session  on  the  third  Monday  of  January 
after  a  Presidential  election.  A  joint  meeting  to  be  held,  to  be  pre- 
sided over  by  the  President  of  the  Senate,  unless  he  should  be  a 
candidate  for  the  office  of  President,  and  in  that  case  by  the  Speaker 
of  the  House  of  Representatives,  and  if  he  were  similarly  disquali- 
fied, then  by  a  presiding  officer,  chosen  by  the  joint  convention;  a 
plurality  of  votes  to  elect  both  the  President  and  the  Vice-President; 
the  joint  convention  to  be  the  judge  of  the  returns  and  qualifications 
of  the  persons  who  shall  be  President  and  Vice-President.  If  no  con- 
clusion upon  the  returns  should  be  reached  by  the  second  Monday  in 
February,  the  convention  was  to  vote  viva  voce  upon  the  question 
who  was  constitutionally  elected  President  and  who  Vice-President,  a 
majority  of  those  present  to  determine  all  questions. 


ADMINISTRATION    OF    PRESIDENT   HAYES.  371 

Mr.  Maish,  of  Pennsylvania,  proposed  a  popular  election  of  Presi- 
dent, without  the  intervention  of  any  electors.  The  votes  were  to 
be  returned  to  the  Secretary  of  State  of  each  State,  and  to  be  by  him 
opened  in  the  presence  of  the  Governor  and  the  Chief  Justice  of  the 
highest  court,  and  these  three  officers  were  to  apportion  electoral 
votes  to  each  candidate  in  accordance  with  the  returns.  This  prop- 
osition did  not  deal  with  the  matter  of  a  count  of  the  votes. 

Mr.  Finley,  of  Ohio,  proposed  a  direct  vote  of  all  the  people  for 
President  and  Vice-President,  disregarding  State  lines  altogether;  a 
plurality  of  votes  was  to  elect  in  each  case,  but  if  two  persons  had  an 
equal  and  the  highest  number  of  votes,  then  the  House  of  Represent- 
atives was  to  choose  the  President  from  those  two;  or,  if  the  failure 
was  in  relation  to  the  Vice-Presidency,  then  the  Senate  was  to  make 
the  choice.  In  each  case  the  voting  was  to  be  viva  voce,  and  each 
member  was  to  have  one  vote;  the  canvass  of  returns  for  President 
and  Vice-President  was  to  be  made  by  Congress  in  a  manner  to  be  de- 
termined by  joint  rules  or  by  law,  and  if  the  two  Houses  could  not 
agree,  the  matter  in  dispute  was  to  be  referred  to  the  Supreme  Court 
for  final  decision. 

Mr.  Eaton,  of  Connecticut,  proposed  in  the  Senate  an  amendment 
constituting  a  tribunal  for  the  decision  of  controverted  questions 
arising  out  of  Presidential  elections.  Not  less  than  twelve  months  be- 
fore the  occurrence  of  such  an  election  the  Governor  of  each  State 
was  to  appoint,  with  the  consent  of  the  Senate  of  the  State,  five  quali- 
fied persons,  who  were  to  hear  and  determine  all  questions  of  contest 
in  relation  to  the  choice  of  electors,  and  to  transmit  their  report, 
sealed,  to  the  President  of  the  Senate. 

A  resolution  offered  by  Mr.  Riddle,  of  Tennessee,  proposed  a  direct 
election  by  the  people,  a  clear  majority  being  required  for  a  choice. 
In  case  such  majority  should  not  be  obtained,  then  a  second  election 
was  to  be  held  within  two  months  of  the  time  of  the  first  vote,  when 
the  choice  should  be  limited  to  the  two  highest  on  the  list.  In  case 
of  no  choice,  by  reason  of  a  tie,  on  this  second  trial,  the  two  Houses 
of  Congress,  in  joint  convention,  each  member  having  one  vote,  were 
to  elect. 

Mr.  Sampson,  of  Iowa,  proposed  that  the  relative  power  of  the 
States  should  be  as  it  now  is;  that  the  people  should  vote  directly 
for  the  Executive;  that  the  persons  having  a  plurality  for  the  offices  of 
President  and  Vice-President  in  any  State  should  receive  the  full 
Presidential  vote  of  that  State,  or,  in  case  of  a  tie,  that  the  votes 
should  be  equally  divided  among  those  having  the  highest  number; 
and  if  no  person  received  a  majority  of  Presidential  votes,  the  choice 
of  either  President  or  Vice-President  wras  to  be  made,  as  the  Consti- 
tution now  provides  for  cases  of  no  choice  made  by  the  electors. 


372  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

In  May,  1878,  Mr.  Southard,  of  Ohio,  from  a  committee  of  the 
House  of  Representatives,  appointed  for  the  purpose,  reported  a  plan. 
It  dispensed  with  electors  altogether.  Each  State  was  to  be  entitled 
to  as  many  Presidential  votes  as  it  would  have  electors  under  the  pres- 
ent system.  The  people  having  voted  directly  for  President  and 
Vice-President,  the  vote  for  each  candidate  in  any  State  was  to  be 
ascertained  by  multiplying  the  number  of  votes  given  for  any  per- 
son by  the  number  of  Presidential  votes  assigned  to  the  State  and 
dividing  the  product  by  the  whole  number  of  votes  cast,  and  the 
fractions  were  to  be  ascertained  to  the  third  place  of  decimals.  The 
returns  were  to  be  made  to  the  Secretary  of  State  of  each  State,  who 
was  to  open  them  in  the  presence  of  the  Governor  and  the  State 
Auditor  or  Controller,  and  the  apportionment  of  Presidential  votes 
was  to  be  made  by  them  as  a  canvassing  board.  Contests  as  to  an 
election  might  be  passed  upon  by  the  highest  judicial  tribunal  in 
each  State,  and  the  decision  was  to  be  sent  to  the  President  of  the 
Senate  at  Washington.  The  votes  were  to  be  counted  by  the  two 
Houses  of  Congress,  assembled  under  the  presidency  of  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  Senate,  and  all  votes  were  to  be  counted  unless  the  two 
Houses  concurred  in  rejecting  them;  or,  if  there  was  a  decision  by  the 
highest  court  of  the  State  upon  a  contest,  that  decision  was  to  stand 
unless  the  two  Houses  concurred  in  overruling  it.  If  there  were  dual 
returns,  or  two  decisions  purporting  to  be  by  the  highest  court,  that 
was  to  be  accepted  which  the  two  Houses  should  decide  to  be  the 
true  return  or  the  true  decision.  A  plurality  of  votes  was  to  elect 
the  President,  and,  in  case  of  a  tie,  the  election  was  to  be  made  in 
the  manner  now  provided  for  in  the  case  of  a  failure  to  elect  by  the 
electors.  This  proposition  never  came  up  for  discussion. 

A  determined  effort  was  made  by  the  Senate,  during  the  session  of 
1878-79,  to  amend  the  law  relative  to  the  count  of  votes  by  a  statute 
covering  the  whole  subject.  The  bill  was  managed  by  Mr.  Edmunds, 
of  Vermont.  It  changed  the  time  for  the  appointment  of  electors 
in  the  several  States  to  the  first  Tuesday  of  October  in  each  fourth 
year.  If  a  vacancy  should  occur  in  both  the  offices  of  President  and 
Vice-President  more  than  two  months  before  the  first  Tuesday  of 
October  in  any  year  other  than  that  in  which  electors  would  be  regu- 
larly appointed,  a  new  election  was  to  be  held.  The  time  for  the 
meeting  and  voting  of  the  electors  was  to  be  the  second  Monday  in 
January  following  their  appointment.  The  fourth  section  was  as 
follows:  "  Each  State  may  provide  by  law  enacted  prior  to  the  day  in 
this  act  named  for  the  appointment  of  the  electors,  for  the  trial  and 
determination  of  any  controversy  concerning  the  appointment  of 
electors,  before  the  time  fixed  for  the  meeting  of  the  electors,  in  any 


ADMINISTRATION    OF   PRESIDENT   HAYES.  373 

manner  it  may  deem  expedient.  Every  such  determination  made 
pursuant  to  such  law  so  enacted  before  said  day,  and  made  prior  to 
the  said  time  of  meeting  of  the  electors,  shall  be  conclusive  evidence 
of  the  lawful  title  of  the  electors  who  shall  have  been  so  determined 
to  have  been  appointed,  and  shall  govern  in  the  counting  of  the  elec- 
toral votes,  as  provided  in  the  Constitution,  and  as  hereinafter  regu- 
lated." 

The  provisions  of  the  bill  in  relation  to  the  count  followed  in 
general  the  custom  of  Congress  under  the  twenty-second  joint  rule, 
with  these  exceptions:  No  vote  from  a  State  from  which  there  was 
but  one  return  could  be  rejected  without  a  concurrent  vote  of  the  two 
Houses.  If  there  were  two  or  more  returns,  that  only  could  be 
counted  which  was  decided  to  be  the  true  return  in  the  manner  pro- 
vided in  the  section  just  quoted.  If  there  were  no  such  determina- 
tion, or  if  there  were  two  or  more  decisions  purporting  to  have  been 
made  in  accordance  with  a  law  passed  in  conformity  with  that  sec- 
tion, that  return,  or  that  decision  only,  could  be  accepted  which  the 
two  Houses  acting  separately  should  decide  by  affirmative  vote  to  be 
in  accordance  with  the  Constitution  and  the  laws.  When  the  two 
Houses  separated  to  consider  objections  to  electoral  votes,  each  mem- 
ber of  either  House  might  speak  once  only  for  five  minutes,  and  at 
the  expiration  of  two  hours  it  would  become  the  duty  of  the  pre- 
siding officer  to  put  the  main  question.  After  several  days  of  debate 
this  bill  was  passed  by  the  Senate,  35  to  26.  The  negative  vote  con 
sisted  entirely  of  Democrats;  the  majority  was  made  up  of  Repub- 
licans, with  the  exception  of  Messrs.  Bayard,  Merrimon,  and  Mor- 
gan, Democrats,  and  Judge  Davis,  of  Illinois,  Independent. 

In  May,  1880,  the  Democrats  having  a  majority  in  the  Senate,  Mr. 
Morgan,  of  Alabama,  reported  from  a  select  committee  a  joint  rule 
for  the  government  of  the  two  Houses  in  counting  the  electoral  votes. 
It  differed  from  the  rescinded  twenty-second  rule  in  several  particu- 
lars. No  vote  from  a  State  which  sent  but  one  return  was  to  be  re- 
jected except  by  the  affirmative  action  of  both  branches  of  Congress. 
If  two  or  more  returns  should  be  offered,  neither  was  to  be  counted 
unless  the  two  Houses  agreed  in  deciding  that  one  of  them  was  the 
true  and  correct  return.  Provision  was  also  made  for  one  hour's  de- 
bate in  each  House  upon  objections,  no  member  to  speak  more  than 
once,  nor  longer  than  ten  minutes;  and  also  for  debate  by  unanimous 
consent  in  the  joint  meeting.  It  was  further  provided  that  an  appeal 
might  be  taken  from  a  decision  by  the  presiding  officer,  which  was 
to  be  overruled  only  by  concurrent  action  of  both  Houses.  This  pro- 
posed rule  was  considered  at  length.  Mr.  Edmunds  endeavored  to 
have  his  bill,  already  summarized,  with  some  changes,  substituted 


374  HISTORY    OF   THE   REPUBLICAN    PARTY. 

for  the  rule.  This  was  voted  down,  as  were  all  other  amendments, 
and  the  rule  was  adopted  by  the  Senate  by  a  vote  of  25  to  14,  a  party 
vote,  except  that  Mr.  Davis,  of  Illinois,  voted  with  the  Demo- 
crats. In  the  House  the  Republicans  endeavored  to  have  the  rule  re- 
ferred to  a  committee,  but  their  motions  having  that  object  in  view 
were  voted  down.  Finally  the  matter  was  postponed  until  the  first 
Monday  in  December,  1880.  It  was  under  consideration  several  times 
during  the  session,  but  the  Republicans  persistently  opposed  it,  and 
on  the  last  day  that  it  was  considered,  January  26,  1881,  they  filibus- 
tered successfully  against  its  passage. 

Early  in  February  of  the  same  year  a  resolution  was  adopted  which 
carried  the  conduct  of  the  count  back  to  the  method  so  long  in  use 
before  the  twenty-second  joint  rule  was  adopted.  It  provided,  how- 
ever, for  two  tellers  on  the  part  of  the  Senate,  which  was  an  innova- 
tion introduced  by  the  Electoral  Commission  Law  of  1877.  The  sec- 
ond resolution  directed  that  in  case  it  should  appear  that  the  elec- 
toral vote  of  any  State  had  been  given  on  any  other  day  than  that 
fixed  by  law,  the  declaration  of  the  result  should  be  in  the  alterna- 
tive form  first  introduced  in  1821,  with  respect  to  the  vote  of  Missouri. 
This  rule  was  adopted  by  both  Houses.  In  the  Senate  there  was  no 
division.  In  the  House  the  second  resolution  was  opposed  by  77 
members,  of  whom  six  were  Democrats  and  three  Greenbackers. 

While  these  futile  attempts  at  legislation,  resulting  only  in  a  re- 
currence to  early  methods  of  counting  the  electoral  votes,  with  the  ad- 
dition of  two  tellers  for  the  Senate  as  in  1877,  were  in  progress,  re- 
sumption had  been  accomplished,  and  the  country  was  on  the  high 
road  to  renewed  prosperity. 


V. 

THE  GARFIELD  AND  ARTHUR  CAMPAIGN. 

Political  Rivalries  in  1880 — General  Grant  a  Candidate  for  a  Third 
Term — The  Delegates  to  the  Republican  National  Convention— 
The  Unit  Rule  in  the  Republican  National  Committee — Chair- 
man Cameron's  Arbitrary  Ruling — Opening  of  the  Convention- 
Chairman  Cameron's  Speech — Senator  Hoar  Presides — Rules 
Against  the  Unit  Rule — Lively  Parliamentary  Contests — Mr. 
Conkling's  Mischievous  Resolution — The  Contested  Seats — Dis- 
trict Representation  Adopted — The  Platform — The  Nominating 
Speeches — Roscoe  Conkling  Nominates  General  Grant — General 
Garfield's  Speech  Nominating  John  Sherman — The  Ballots — 
Garfield  Nominated — Chester  A.  Arthur  for  Vice-President — The 
Candidates — General  Hancock  Nominated  by  the  Democrats — 
The  Campaign — Results  of  the  Elections. 


EITHER  in  the  measures  of  President  Hayes's  administration 
nor  in  differences  of  opinion  on  party  questions  was  there 
any  cause  for  the  great  Republican  feud  that  made  the 
Republican  National  Convention  of  1880  the  most  stirring 
and  dramatic  in  the  history  of  the  party.  The  contentions  of  the  six 
days  that  it  remained  in  session  had  their  origin  in  the  political  am- 
bitions of  party  leaders.  The  contest  was  for  leadership,  not  for  prin- 
ciples. Elaine's  defeat  at  Cincinnati,  in  1876,  still  rankled  in  the 
hearts  of  his  admirers,  who  were  determined  that  he  should  be  nom- 
inated in  1880.  That  defeat  was  due  to  the  inveterate  hostility  of 
Roscoe  Conkling.  Each  was  implacable  toward  the  other,  and  as  the 
time  approached  for  the  nomination  of  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency 
in  1880  it  became  clear  that  every  political  interest  would  be  subor- 
dinated to  the  struggle  between  the  giants.  They  had  long  been 
enemies.  Their  personal  hostility  had  begun  when  they  were  serving 
together  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  and  finally  Mr.  Conkling's 
bitterness  became  so  extreme  that  he  sacrificed  his  own  political  as- 
pirations for  the  destruction  of  Elaine's  Presidential  ambition.  In 
doing  this  General  Grant  was  also  made  to  suffer  in  reputation,  for, 
as  the  result  of  the  quarrel  between  Conkling  and  Elaine,  he  was 
made  to  appear  to  desire  a  third  term,  upon  which  the  long  contest 
in  the  Chicago  Convention  of  1880  turned. 

Nothing  in  the  history  of  the  Republican  party  is  more  to  be  re- 
gretted than  the  attempt  to  make  Grant  a  candidate  for  President 
for  the  third  time.  Grant  had  only  lately  returned  from  his  mem- 


376  HISTORY   OF   THE   REPUBLICAN    PARTY. 

orable  tour  around  the  world.  The  acerbities  of  his  last  administra- 
tion had  passed  out  of  the  minds  of  the  people,  and  the  country  was 
proud  of  the  honors  that  had  been  bestowed  upon  him  in  every  land 
that  he  had  visited.  It  was  while  the  enthusiasm  thus  aroused  was 
at  its  height  that  the  plans  were  laid  for  promoting  Grant's  candida- 
ture in  order  to  defeat  Blaine.  Senator  Conkling  in  New  York,  Sen- 
ator Cameron  in  Pennsylvania,  and  Senator  Logan  in  Illinois,  under- 
took to  control  their  State  Conventions  to  this  end.  In  these  three 
States  the  delegations  were  instructed  to  vote  as  a  unit  for  General 
Grant,  but  not  without  strong  opposition  in  all  of  them.  In  New  York 
the  majority  was  only  38,  in  a  total  vote  of  397,  and  in  Pennsylvania  it 
was  20.  Similar  action  was  taken  in  Illinois  by  a  small  majority,  nine 
delegates  already  chosen  in  the  Congress  districts  being  set  aside  by 
the  State  Convention.  This  course  naturally  aroused  opposition,  not 
only  in  the  States  immediately  concerned,  but  all  over  the  country. 
The  leading  Republican  newspapers  took  strong  ground  against  the 
action  dictated  by  the  three  powerful  leaders — Conkling,  Cameron, 
and  Logan.  In  New  York,  the  New  York  Tribune,  the  Albany 
Journal,  and  the  Utica  Herald;  in  Pennsylvania,  the  Philadelphia 
Press,  and  in  Illinois  the  Chicago  Tribune,  not  only  vigorously  com- 
bated the  third  term  project,  but  denounced  the  methods  of  its  pro- 
moters. Some  of  the  instructed  delegates  announced  their  intention 
to  disregard  their  instructions.  Among  these  were  William  H.  Rob- 
ertson, of  Westchester  County,  N.  Y.,  and  James  McManes,  of  Phil- 
adelphia. All  this  presaged  a  determined  fight  in  the  Convention 
for  the  complete  abrogation  of  the  unit  rule,  and  led  to  the  pro- 
longed contest  that  ended  with  the  nomination  of  General  Garfield. 

The  Convention  was  one  of  unusual  distinction,  even  when  com- 
pared with  the  Republican  National  Conventions  that  had  gone  be- 
fore it.  Seven  of  the  States  sent  United  States  Senators  with  their 
delegations:  New  York,  Roscoe  Conkling;  Pennsylvania,  J.  Donald 
Cameron;  Massachusetts,  George  P.  Hoar;  Illinois,  Gen.  John  A.  Lo- 
gan; Kansas,  Preston  B.  Plumb;  Louisiana,  William  P.  Kellogg,  and 
Mississippi,  Blanche  K.  Bruce.  General  Garfield  was  already  com- 
missioned as  a  Senator  from  Ohio,  and  other  delegates,  who  were  soon 
to  enter  the  Senate,  were:  Eugene  Hale  and  William  P.  Frye,  of 
Maine;  William,  J.  Sewell,  of  New  Jersey;  Omer  D.  Conger,  of  Michi- 
gan; Gen.  Benjamin  Harrison,  of  Indiana;  Philetus  Sawyer,  of  Wis- 
consin, and  Dwight  M.  Sabin,  of  Minnesota.  Besides  Senator  Cam- 
eron, there  were  four  delegates  who  had  been  in  General  Grant's 
Cabinet — George  S.  Boutwell,  of  Massachusetts;  J.  A.  J.  Creswell,  of 
Maryland;  Edwards  Pierrepont,  of  New  Yrork,  and  George  H.  Will- 
iams, of  Oregon.  Among  the  younger  men  in  the  party,  who  were 


THE   GARFIELD  AND  ARTHUR  CAMPAIGN.  377 

already  prominent  or  were  coming  into  prominence,  were:  William 
E.  Chandler,  of  New  Hampshire;  President  Seelye  and  Henry  Cabot 
Lodge,  of  Massachusetts;  Henry  C.  Robinson,  of  Connecticut;  Chester 
A.  Arthur,  of  New  York;  William  Walter  Phelps,  of  New  Jersey; 
Gen.  James  A.  Beaver  and  Col.  Matthew  IS.  Quay,  of  Pennsylvania; 
Emory  A.  Storrs,  of  Illinois;  Governor  Henderson  and  J.  S.  Clark- 
son,  of  Iowa,  and  Governor  Warmoth,  of  Louisiana.  Thus  it  will  be 
seen  the  Convention  was  representative  of  the  leading  men  of  the 
party  during  the  rest  of  the  century. 

The  meeting  of  the  Convention  was  fixed  for  Wednesday,  June  2, 
but  the  battle  began  days  before  the  vast  assemblage  gathered  in 
Exposition  Hall.  On  Monday  and  Tuesday,  the  Chicago  hotels  were 
seething  masses  of  heated  political  disputants.  The  abrogation  of 
the  unit  rule  was  the  one  subject  under  discussion.  The  first  strug- 
gle was  in  the  Republican  National  Committee.  A  secret  meeting- 
was  called,  at  which  Mr.  Chandler,  of  New  Hampshire,  offered  two 
resolutions.  The  first  was  a  mere  formal  approval  of  the  call  for  the 
Convention,  and  was  adopted  without  opposition.  The  other  was  a 
recognition  of  the  right  of  each  delegate  in  a  Republican  National 
Convention  "  freely  to  cast,  and  to  have  counted,  his  individual  vote 
therein,  according  to  his  own  sentiments,  and,  if  he  so  decides, 
against  any  unit  rule  or  other  instructions,  passed  by  a  State  Con- 
vention, which  right  was  conceded  without  dissent,  and  was  exer- 
cised in  the  Conventions  of  1860  and  1868,  and  was,  after  full  de- 
bate, affirmed  by  the  Convention  in  1876,  and  has  thus  become  a 
part  of  the  law  of  Republican  Conventions,  and  until  reversed  by  a 
convention  itself,  must  remain  a  governing  principle."  Senator 
Cameron,  the  Chairman  of  the  National  Committee,  ruled  this  reso- 
lution out  of  order.  Because  of  this  ruling  there  was  a  scheme  to  de- 
prive Cameron  of  his  power  unless  he  promised  not  to  enforce  the 
unit  rule,  but  he  declined  to  give  the  promise,  and  the  majority  of 
the  Committee  was  content  with  naming  George  F.  Hoar,  of  Massa- 
chusetts, for  temporary  Chairman  of  the  Convention.  Cameron's  au- 
tocratic course  was  hotly  denounced  at  the  headquarters  of  the  State 
delegations,  in  the  corridors  of  the  hotels,  and  in  the  streets.  As  is 
apt  to  be  the  case  with  extreme  measures,  in  retaliation  twenty-two 
members  of  the  New  York  delegation  signed  a  paper  declaring  their 
purpose  "  to  resist  the  nomination  of  Gen.  U.  S.  Grant  at  all  hazards," 
and  avowing  the  conviction  that  in  New  York,  at  least,  his  nomina- 
tion would  insure  defeat.  A  revolt  in  the  Pennsylvania  delegation 
followed  the  next  morning.  In  order  to  prevent  further  defections 
the  Grant  men,  through  Gen.  Chester  A.  Arthur,  of  New  York,  of- 
fered a  compromise,  that  was  accepted.  This  agreement  declared 


378  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

that  Senator  Hoar  should  be  accepted  as  temporary  Chairman  of  the 
Convention,  and  that  no  attempt  should  be  made  to  enforce  the  unit 
rule,  or  have  a  test  vote  in  the  Convention,  until  the  committee  on 
credentials  had  reported,  when  the  unit  rule  question  should  be  de- 
cided by  the  Convention  in  its  own  way. 

The  seating  of  the  great  Convention  on  the  day  of  the  opening  was 
in  itself  a  spectacle.  As  the  noon  hour  approached  the  spectators 
began  to  gather,  but  when  the  clock  struck  twelve  there  were  not  a 
thousand  persons  in  the  hall.  An  hour  later  a  mass  of  ten  thousand 
living,  breathing  beings  was  crowded  within  the  great  building.  The 
interest  centered  in  the  delegations  in  turn,  as  they  arrived  and  took 
their  places.  The  Alabama  delegation  was  the  first  to  file  in  as  a 
body.  It  was  a  motley  exhibit  of  the  wonderful  revolution  in  Ameri- 
can politics  that  had  been  accomplished  since  the  birth  of  the  lie- 
publican  party.  Every  shade  of  color  was  represented,  from  the  pure 
white  to  the  unadulterated  African.  Arkansas  followed  with  Dor- 
sey,  the  last  Republican  Senator  from  that  State,  in  the  lead.  Then 
the  delegations  poured  in  in  such  a  continuous  stream  that  it  was 
impossible  to  single  them  out  by  States  until  they  were  seated.  Prom 
every  State  came  men  distinguished  in  the  war  for  the  Union  and  the 
councils  of  the  party.  General  Sewell,  and  Kilpatrick,  the  dashing 
cavalry  leader,  were  with  the  men  from  New  Jersey.  "  Long  John  " 
Wentworth  towered  above  the  Illinois  delegation.  The  white  locks 
of  Marshall  Jewell  gave  a  romantic  touch  to  the  plain,  earnest  Con- 
necticut faces  around  him.  General  Beaver,  on  his  crutch,  swung 
himself  down  the  aisle,  and  into  place  at  the  head  of  the  Pennsyl- 
vania delegation.  Near  him  were  the  refined  face  of  Colonel  Quay 
and  the  rugged  features  of  John  Cessna,  suggestive  of  his  aggressive 
personality.  In  the  center  of  the  delegation  from  Mississippi  was  the 
olive-hued  Bruce,  and  the  tall,  spare  form  of  the  venerable  War  Gov- 
ernor, Dennison,  was  seen  among  the  men  from  Ohio.  By  Dennison's 
side  was  General  Garfield,  bright  and  alert,  but  without  any  pre- 
monitions of  what  this  vast  assemblage  meant  for  him.  As  the 
champion  of  John  Sherman  many  expectant  eyes  regarded  him;  but 
two  other  figures,  perhaps,  attracted  even  more  attention.  They 
were  men  who  would  be  singled  out  for  observation  in  any  assem- 
blage. One  had  the  swarthy  visage  and  long,  straight  hair  of  an  In- 
dian— the  other  the  splendid  front  and  haughty  mien  of  a  modern 
Charlemagne.  These  were  Logan  and  Conkling,  the  spokesmen  of  the 
hero,  Grant.  Five  minutes  before  the  clock  struck  one,  Chairman 
Cameron  mounted  the  platform  with  elastic  step.  When  he  was  on 
his  way  to  begin  the  contest  that  all  men  foresaw,  he  was  asked, 
"  What  of  the  battle?  "  and  answered  back,  "  We  have  three  hundred 


THE   GARFIELD   AND   ARTHUR   CAMPAIGN.  379 

to  start  with,  and  shall  stick  until  we  win."  Ten  minutes  later  he 
calmly  opened  the  Convention  with  moderate  words,  and  the  great 
fight  was  on. 

"  Let  there  be  but  one  motive  governing  our  actions,"  Senator  Cam- 
eron said,  "  and  let  that  be  a  determination  to  place  in  nomination 
the  strongest  possible  candidates,  men  strong  in  themselves,  strong 
in  the  confidence  and  affections  of  the  people,  and  men  who  will  com- 
mand the  respect  of  the  civilized  world.  Do  not  for  a  moment  doubt 
the  strength  of  our  institutions.  They  have  been  tried  in  blood,  and 
come  from  the  contest  better,  stronger,  and  purer  than  the  most  ar- 
dent patriot  dared  to  hope.  No  combination  of  circumstances,  no  co- 
terie of  individuals,  no  personal  ambition  can  ever  prevail  against  the 
intelligence  and  inborn  love  of  liberty  which  are  implanted  in  the 
hearts  of  Americans.  When  the  nominations  are  made,  and  the  Con- 
vention has  completed  its  work,  let  there  be  but  one  sentiment  ani- 
mating all  earnest,  sincere,  and  unselfish  Republicans,  and  let  that 
be,  that  each  shall  vie  with  the  other  in  carrying  our  grand  old  party 
through  the  coming  contest  to  victory." 

After  this  brief  speech  Senator  Hoar  was  presented  as  the  tempor- 
ary Chairman  of  the  Convention,  and  then,  after  another  address, 
that  was  a  compact  contrast  of  the  two  great  political  parties  of 
the  country,  the  committees  on  Organization,  Credentials,  Rules  and 
Resolutions  were  appointed.  With  the  appointment  of  the  commit- 
tees, the  interest  centered  in  their  action,  which  it  was  known  would 
virtually  decide  the  nomination  for  the  Presidency.  In  all  the  com- 
mittees the  anti-Grant  members  were  in  the  majority.  Mr.  Conger,  of 
Michigan,  was  made  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Credentials,  by  a 
vote  of  29  to  11  for  Mr.  Tracy,  of  New  York.  The  Committee  on  Rules 
made  General  Garfield  chairman.  In  the  Committee  on  Organiza- 
tion, Senator  Hoar  had  31  votes  for  permanent  President  of  the  Con- 
vention to  9  for  Mr.  Creswell,  of  Maryland.  These  votes,  however, 
were  no  lest  of  the  strength  of  the  opposition  to  General  Grant  in  the 
Convention,  which  would  depend  upon  the  report  of  the  Committee 
on  Credentials  and  the  abrogation  of  the  unit  rule.  There  were  many 
contests,  and  the  report  was  not  made  until  Friday,  and  not  finally 
disposed  of  until  Saturday.  In  the  meantime,  the  permanent  organi- 
zation being  effected,  the  Parliamentary  gladiators  amused  them- 
selves by  sparring  for  points.  The  first  clash  between  the  opposing 
factions  wras  over  a  proposition  to  request  the  Committee  on  Rules 
to  report,  so  that  the  Convention  could  proceed  to  business.  The 
effort  failed  on  the  morning  of  the  second  day,  to  give  General 
Sharpe,  of  New  York,  time  to  make  a  minority  report,  but  it  was  re- 
newed at  the  evening  session.  There  was  another  clash  and  some 


380  HISTORY   OF  THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

strong  language  was  used.  General  Logan  said  that  the  committee 
had  agreed  to  defer  their  reports  until  after  the  action  on  contested 
seats,  and  that  the  rules  ought  not  to  be  adopted  before  they  knew 
who  were  entitled  to  seats  in  the  body,  especially  as  one  of  the  rules 
to  be  reported  would  limit  each  speaker  to  five  minutes.  Mr.  Hen- 
derson, of  Iowa,  denied  that  there  was  any  such  compact,  and  as- 
serted, on  the  authority  of  a  Kentucky  member,  that  the  minority 
report  was  in  fact  ready  to  be  reported  in  the  morning.  This  the 
Kentucky  member  characterized  as  a  misstatement,  whereupon  an- 
other committeeman  shouted  excitedly  that  the  statement  was  accur- 
ate and  true.  As  a  test  of  strength,  General  Sharpe  moved  to  amend 
the  pending  motion  by  ordering  the  Committee  on  Credentials  to 
make  its  report.  On  the  vote  on  his  amendment  Sharpe  asked  that 
the  question  be  taken  by  yeas  and  nays,  and  the  chair,  in  the  ab- 
sence of  any  adopted  rules,  so  ordered.  The  calling  of  the  roll  began, 
Alabama  leading  off  with  19  yeas.  When  this  vote  was  announced  a 
delegate  from  that  State,  rising,  desired  to  vote  in  the  negative.  Mr. 
Hoar  replied:  "  If  the  gentleman  wishes  to  vote  '  No/  his  vote  will  be 
received  and  recorded."  This  was  a  distinct  repudiation  of  the  unit 
rule,  and,  under  the  ruling  of  the  chair,  it  was  adhered  to  throughout 
the  ballot.  The  amendment  was  lost  by  406  nays  to  318  ayes,  a  re- 
sult that  clearly  foreshadowed  the  failure  of  the  third  term  move- 
ment, unless  General  Grant  should  be  able  to  draw  sufficient  support 
from  the  other  candidates  to  nominate  him. 

On  the  morning  of  the  third  day,  Friday,  Mr.  Conkling  created  a  di- 
version for  which  there  could  be  no  adequate  reason.  He  offered  a 
resolution  declaring  it  to  be  the  sense  of  the  Convention  "  that  every 
member  of  it  is  bound  in  honor  to  support  its  nominee,  whoever  that 
nominee  may  be,  and  that  no  man  shall  hold  his  seat  here  who  is  not 
ready  so  to  agree."  When  it  was  put  upon  its  passage  it  received  an 
almost  unanimous  vote,  only  three  delegates  from  West  Virginia  vot- 
ing against  it.  As  soon  as  it  was  passed  its  mischievous  intent  was 
made  apparent.  Mr.  Conkling  moved  that  the  delegates  "  who  have 
voted  that  they  will  not  abide  the  action  of  the  Convention  do  not  de- 
serve to  have  seats,  and  have  forfeited  their  votes  in  the  Convention." 
A.  W.  Campbell,  editor  of  the  Wheeling  Intelligencer,  the  most  promi- 
nent of  the  three  West  Virginia  independents,  vigorously  defended 
their  action,  but  the  most  important  speech  in  the  debate  that  en- 
sued was  that  of  General  Garfield.  He  expressed  the  fear  that  the  Con- 
vention was  about  to  commit  a  grave  error.  "  Every  delegate  save 
three,"  he  said,  "  had  voted  for  a  resolution,  and  the  three  had  risen 
in  their  places  and  stated  that  they  intended  to  support  the  nominee  of 
the  Convention.  Was  every  delegate  to  have  his  Kepublicanism  in- 


THE   GARFIELD  AND   ARTHUR   CAMPAIGN.  381 

quired  into  before  he  was  allowed  to  vote?  Delegates  were  respon- 
sible for  their  votes,  not  to  the  Convention,  but  to  their  constituents. 
He  himself  would  never,  in  any  convention,  vote  against  his  judg- 
ment. If  this  Convention  expelled  these  men,  it  would  have  to  purge 
itself  at  the  end  of  every  vote,  and  inquire  how  many  delegates  who 
had  voted  '  No '  should  go  out.  He  trusted  that  the  gentleman  from 
New  York  would  withdraw  his  resolution  and  let  the  Convention  pro- 
ceed with  its  business."  Mr.  Conkling  inquired  of  the  chair  whether 
the  three  gentlemen  from  West  Virginia  said  that  they  would  vote 
for  the  nominee  of  the  Convention.  The  chair  said  that  it  was  not  his 
province  to  answer  the  question.  Conkling  then  said  that  he  would 
not  press  his  resolution,  if  his  question  was  answered  in  the  affirma- 
tive, and  finally  withdrew  it.  General  Garfield's  temperate  speech 
was  the  first  important  step  in  the  Convention  toward  his  nomina- 
tion. 

After  the  breeze  of  Friday  morning  had  blown  over,  the  reports 
from  the  Committee  on  Rules  were  submitted,  with  the  understanding 
that  they  were  not  to  be  acted  upon  until  after  the  report  of  the  Com- 
mittee on  Credentials.  This  Committee  had  examined  the  cases  of 
fifty  contesting  delegates,  and  finally  made  two  reports,  which  oc- 
cupied the  time  of  the  Convention  for  the  rest  of  the  day,  Friday,  and 
were  not  finally  disposed  of  until  Saturday  morning.  In  the  Louis- 
iana contest  the  Committee  recommended  the  admission  of  the  War- 
moth  delegation;  in  Alabama  the  admission  of  Rapier,  Smith,  and 
Warner;  in  Illinois  the  admission  of  the  contestants  for  the  seats  of 
the  sitting  members  from  nine  Congress  Districts.  They  reported 
against  the  contestant  in  the  Second  Illinois  District,  and  did  not 
sustain  the  objections  to  the  delegates-at-large  from  that  State.  They 
reported  in  favor  of  the  sitting  members  from  the  Ninth  and  Nine- 
teenth Districts  of  Pennsylvania,  and  the  Third  District  of  West  Vir- 
ginia, and  in  favor  of  the  contestants  from  the  Second  and  the  Third 
Districts  of  Kansas.  They  recommended  that  the  delegates  from 
Utah  should  keep  their  seats.  The  committee  suggested  that  the 
final  decision  of  many  of  these  contests  depended  upon  the  adop- 
tion by  the  Convention  of  the  principle  of  District  representation. 

Mr.  Clayton,  of  Arkansas,  presented  the  minority  report.  The  rec- 
ommendation of  the  majority,  if  adopted,  would,  the  minority  consid- 
ered, reverse  the  long-established  usage  of  the  party  in  many  States. 
They  urged  that  there  was  a  vacancy  in  the  district  claimed  by  Ra- 
pier, and  that  the  sitting  members  were  entitled  to  the  seats  which 
the  majority  report  awarded  to  Smith  and  Warner.  They  reported 
that  there  seemed  to  have  been  no  District  conventions  in  Alabama, 
at  which  the  contestants  had  been  chosen.  Their  authority  there 


382  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

could  rest  only  on  the  action  of  the  State  Convention.  The  minority 
claimed  that  if  the  principle  of  District  representation  was  a  sound 
one  more  than  half  of  the  delegates  sitting  in  the  Convention  were 
there  without  right.  In  the  case  of  Illinois,  they  made  an  elaborate 
statement  of  facts,  and  denied  the  charge  that  the  State  Convention 
had  entered  into  a  gigantic  conspiracy  to  defraud  the  electors.  The 
report  took  the  ground  that  the  local  quarrels,  as  in  Cook  County, 
should  be  left  to  the  State  Convention,  and  not  transferred  to  the 
National  Convention.  It  ended  with  the  recommendation  that  the 
sitting  delegates  should  be  allowed  to  keep  their  seats. 

After  the  corrected  list  of  delegates  had  been  presented,  Mr.  Cessna, 
of  Pennsylvania,  moved  to  adopt  all  of  the  report  on  which  the  com- 
mittee had  agreed,  and  then  proceed  to  the  separate  consideration 
of  the  disputed  issues  involving  the  contests  in  Alabama,  Illinois, 
West  Virginia,  and  Utah.  Mr.  Conkling  called  for  the  considera- 
tion of  the  questions  which  fell  within  the  list  of  undisputed  cases. 
Mr.  Conger  said  that  this  list  embraced  the  cases  of  Louisiana,  the 
Second  District  of  Illinois,  the  Illinois  delegates-at-large,  the  Second 
and  the  Fourth  Districts  of  Kansas,  and  the  Ninth  and  the  Nineteenth 
Districts  of  Pennsylvania.  General  Logan  inquired  how  it  happened 
that  there  was  any  report  about  the  four  delegates-at-large  from  Il- 
linois. Mr.  Conger  replied  that  petitions  against  the  rights  of  the  four 
delegates-at-large  had  been  presented  to  the  Convention  and  referred 
to  the  committee,  and  that  it  was  therefore  necessary  for  the  com- 
mittee to  notice  the  subject.  A  Kansas  delegate  objected  to  includ- 
ing his  State  in  the  list  of  undisputed  questions,  and  Mr.  Cessna 
amended  his  motion  by  allowing  separate  action  on  the  Kansas  case. 
General  Sharpe  moved  to  amend  Cessna's  original  motion  by  striking 
from  the  majority  report  so  much  of  it  as  related  to  the  Illinois 
delegates-at-large.  Mr.  Conger,  referring  to  Logan,  said  that  he  made 
no  apology  to  the  gentleman,  or  to  the  State  of  Illinois,  or  to  this 
great  body  of  people,  for  the  moral  courage  of  this  committee,  which 
enabled  it  to  say  to  the  world  that  the  gentleman  was  entitled  to  his 
seat.  Cessna's  amendment  was  then  adopted  without  dissent.  The 
question  was  then  on  Sharpe's  amendment.  Mr.  Haywood,  of  Cal- 
ifornia, pointed  out  that  if  it  should  prevail  the  seats  of  the  Illinois 
delegates  would  be  contested,  while  the  committee  proposed  to  put 
their  title  beyond  question  or  dispute  in  history.  It  was  modified  so 
as  to  strike  from  the  majority  report  as  much  of  it  as  implied  that 
there  was  any  contest  regarding  the  Illinois  delegation-at-large,  and 
adopted.  Cessna's  original  motion  was  then  adopted.  In  the  settle- 
ment of  the  disputed  claims  to  representation  the  first  case  in  order 
was  Alabama,  and  after  full  debate  a  motion  to  substitute  the  re- 


THE   GARFIELD   AND   ARTHUR   CAMPAIGN.  383 

port  of  the  minority  for  that  of  the  majority  was  defeated,  the  ayes 
being  306,  the  nays  449.  The  Convention  thus  reaffirmed  the  cardinal 
doctrine  of  District  representation.  The  case  of  Illinois,  which  had 
excited  more  interest  than  all  others,  next  came  up.  The  discussion 
was  prolonged  and  animated,  and  the  result  was  not  reached  until 
nearly  two  o'clock  in  the  morning.  Nine  districts  were  at  stake,  but 
the  vote  was  taken  on  each  separately,  and  the  delegates  chosen  in  the 
districts  were  admitted  by  a  vote  of  387  to  353.  In  the  cases  of  West 
Virginia  and  Kansas  there  was  some  dispute  as  to  the  facts,  but  they 
were  decided  upon  the  same  principle. 

The  abrogation  of  the  unit  rule  was  complete  in  the  action  of  the 
Convention  on  every  disputed  seat,  and  it  only  needed  the  adoption 
of  the  report  of  the  Committee  on  Rules  to  settle  the  question  of  Dis- 
trict representation  as  the  future  policy  of  the  party.  There  were 
only  verbal  changes  in  the  rules  of  1876,  except  in  one  instance. 
This  related  to  cases  where  the  vote  of  a  State  is  divided.  The  old 
rule  prescribed  that  where  the  vote  was  divided  the  chairman  of  the 
delegation  should  announce  the  number  of  votes  cast  for  any  candi- 
date or  for  or  against  any  proposition.  The  committee  reported  in 
favor  of  adding  the  following:  "  But  if  exception  is  taken  by  any 
delegate  to  the  correctness  of  such  announcement  by  the  chairman 
of  his  delegation,  the  President  of  the  Convention  shall  direct  the 
roll  of  members  of  such  delegation  to  be  called,  and  the  result  shall 
be  recorded  in  accordance  with  the  votes  individually  given."  As  a 
parliamentary  device  to  prevent  the  adoption  of  this  principle  as  the 
settled  policy  of  the  party,  General  Sharpe  moved  that  the  Conven- 
tion proceed  to  ballot  for  a  candidate  for  President  of  the  United 
States.  General  Garfleld  raised  the  point  of  order  that  under  the 
order  of  the  Convention  the  report  of  the  Committee  on  Rules  was 
before  the  body,  and  that  Sharpens  motion  to  proceed  to  entirely 
different  business  was  not  in  order.  The  chair  ruled  Sharpe's  motion 
in  order.  Upon  a  viva  i~oce  vote,  the  negative  had  it.  A  call  of 
States  was  demanded,  and  resulted:  Yeas,  287;  nays,  479.  The  result 
was  hailed  with  great  applause.  General  Garfield  said  that  the  Con- 
vention had  wasted  on  this  vote  time  enough  to  have  adopted  the 
rules  and  gone  to  work.  He  asked  that  the  question  now  be  taken 
without  further  debate.  But  General  Sharpe  moved  to  substitute 
the  minority  report  for  the  majority.  This  motion  was  rejected.  Mr. 
Boutwell  moved  to  amend  the  majority  report  by  adding,  "  And  said 
committee  (the  National  Republican  Committee)  shall,  within  twelve 
months,  prescribe  a  method  or  methods  for  the  election  of  delegates 
to  the  National  Convention  to  be  held  in  1884,  and  announce  the  same 
to  the  country  and  issue  a  call  for  that  Convention  in  conformity 


384  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

therewith."  Mr.  Butterworth,  of  Ohio,  moved  an  amendment  that 
nothing  in  such  rules  or  method  shall  be  so  construed  as  to  prevent 
the  several  Congress  Districts  in  the  United  States  from  selecting 
their  own  delegates  to  the  National  Convention.  Mr.  Boutwell  ac- 
cepted the  amendment,  and  his  motion,  as  amended,  was  adopted. 
Then  the  rules  were  adopted  as  a  whole. 

The  platform  reported  and  adopted  at  Chicago  was  the  least  dis- 
tinctive declaration  of  principles  that  ever  emanated  from  a  Repub- 
lican  National  Convention.  It  presented  no  overmastering  issue, 
which  was  in  marked  contrast  with  every  previous  platform  since 
1856.  The  protection  of  American  industries  became  the  controlling 
question  in  the  campaign,  but  the  tariff  plank  was  only  a  repetition 
of  the  declaration  of  1876.  The  restriction  of  Chinese  immigration 
was  approved.  The  Democratic  party  was  charged  with  sustaining 
fraudulent  elections,  with  unseating  members  of  Congress  who  had 
been  lawfully  chosen,  with  viciously  attaching  partisan  legislation 
to  appropriation  bills,  and  with  seeking  to  obliterate  the  sacred  mem- 
ories of  the  war.  "  The  solid  South,"  it  was  declared,  "  must  be  di- 
vided by  the  peaceful  agencies  of  the  ballot;  and  all  honest  opinions 
must  there  find  free  expression."  As  reported  from  the  Committee 
on  Resolutions,  the  platform  was  silent  on  Civil-service  Reform,  but 
in  Convention  it  was  resolved  "  that  the  Republican  party  adopts 
the  declaration  of  President  Hayes  that  the  reform  in  the  civil  ser- 
vice shall  be  thorough,  radical,  and  complete,  and  to  that  end  de- 
mands the  co-operation  of  the  Legislative  with  the  Executive  Depart- 
ments of  the  Government." 

It  was  late  on  Saturday  when  the  preliminary  work  of  the  Con- 
vention was  finished,  but  it  was  determined,  after  a  recess,  to  de- 
vote Saturday  evening  to  the  presentation  of  Presidential  candidates. 
Ten  minutes  were  allowed  for  nominating  speeches,  and  five  minutes 
for  the  orator  seconding  each  nomination.  The  candidates  were  put 
in  nomination  by  a  call  of  the  States,  but  it  was  not  until  Michigan 
was  reached  that  the  first  name  was  brought  forward.  It  was  pro- 
posed by  James  F.  Joy,  and  was  the  name  of  James  G.  Elaine.  The 
speech  caused  a  shade  of  disappointment  to  pass  over  the  Conven- 
tion, because  it  lacked  the  oratorical  brilliancy  with  which  Colonel 
Ingersoll  had  put  Mr.  Elaine  in  nomination  four  years  before.  When 
Minnesota  was  called,  E.  F.  Drake  presented  the  name  of  William 
WTindom.  The  next  nomination  was  that  of  General  Grant  by  Ros- 
coe  Conkling.  "  The  need  of  the  hour,"  Mr.  Conkling  said,  "  is  a 
candidate  who  can  carry  doubtful  States,  North  and  South,  and  be- 
lieving that  he,  more  surely  than  any  other,  can  carry  New  York 
against  any  opponent,  and  can  carry  not  only  the  North,  but  several 


THE   GARFIELD  AND  ARTHUR  CAMPAIGN.  385 

States  of  the  South,  New  York  is  for  Ulysses  S.  Grant.  He  alone  of 
living  Republicans  has  carried  New  York  as  a  Presidential  candidate. 
Once  he  carried  it  even  according  to  a  Democratic  count,  and  twice 
he  carried  it  by  the  people's  votes,  and  he  is  stronger  now — the  lie- 
publican  party,  with  its  standard  in  his  hand,  is  stronger  now— 
than  in  1868  or  1872.  Never  defeated  in  war  or  in  peace,  his  name  is 
the  most  illustrious  borne  by  any  living  man.  His  services  attest  his 
greatness,  and  the  country  knows  them  by  heart.  Standing  on  the 
highest  eminence  of  human  destination,  and  having  filled  all  lands 
with  his  renown,  modest,  simple,  and  self-poised,  he  has  not  seen 
only  the  titled,  but  the  poor  and  the  lowly,  in  the  uttermost  ends  of 
the  earth,  rise  and  uncover  before  him.  He  has  studied  the  needs 
and  defects  of  many  systems  of  government,  and  he  has  come  back  a 
better  American  than  ever,  with  a  wealth  of  knowledge  and  experi- 
ence added  to  the  hard  common  sense  which  so  conspicuously  dis- 
tinguished him  in  all  the  fierce  light  that  beat  upon  him  throughout 
the  most  eventful,  trying,  and  perilous  sixteen  years  of  the  nation's 
history.  Never  having  had  '  a  policy  '  to  enforce  against  the  will  of 
the  people,  he  never  betrayed  a  cause  or  a  friend,  and  the  people  will 
never  betray  or  desert  him.  Villified  and  reviled,  ruthlessly  aspersed 
by  numberless  persons,  not  in  other  lands,  but  in  his  own,  the  as- 
saults upon  him  have  strengthened  and  seasoned  his  hold  on  the  pub- 
lic heart.  Never  elated  by  success,  never  depressed  by  adversity,  he 
has  ever,  in  peace  as  in  war,  shown  the  very  genius  of  common  sense. 
The  terms  he  prescribed  for  Lee's  surrender  foreshadowed  the  wisest 
principles  and  prophecies  of  true  reconstruction."  In  conclusion  he 
said  that  the  Convention  was  master  of  a  supreme  opportunity.  It 
could  make  the  next  President,  and  also  make  sure  of  his  peaceful  in- 
auguration. It  could  break  that  power  which  mildews  the  South. 
It  could  make  the  Republican  army  march  to  certain  victory  with  its 
greatest  marshal  at  its  head.  When  Mr.  Conkling's  speech  was 
ended  the  Grant  men  in  the  Convention  and  in  the  galleries  indulged 
in  an  outbreak  of  enthusiasm  that  was  uncontrollable.  The  galler- 
ies made  the  building  shake.  On  the  floor  the  delegates,  collecting 
the  flags  that  marked  the  places  of  the  different  delegations,  marched 
along  the  aisles,  cheering  and  shouting.  This  uproar  lasted  fully 
twenty  minutes,  before  Mr.  Bradley,  of  Kentucky,  who  seconded 
Grant's  nomination,  was  allowed  to  speak. 

When  General  Garfield  rose  to  nominate  John  Sherman,  he  spoke 
of  the  feeling  that  had  just  swayed  the  vast  assemblage  in  a  tone  of 
gentle  deprecation  and  deep  solicitude.  "  No  emotion  touches  my 
heart  more  quickly,"  he  said,  "  than  a  sentiment  in  honor  of  a  great 
and  noble  character.  But  as  I  sat  on  these  seats  and  witnessed  these 


386  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

demonstrations,  it  seemed  to  me  you  were  a  human  ocean  in  a  tem- 
pest. I  have  seen  the  sea  lashed  into  a  fury  and  tossed  into  a  spray, 
and  its  grandeur  moves  the  soul  of  the  dullest  man.  But  I  remember 
that  it  is  not  the  billows,  but  the  calm  level  of  the  sea,  from  which  all 
heights  and  depths  are  measured.  Gentlemen  of  the  Convention, 
your  present  temper  may  not  mark  the  healthful  pulse  of  our  people. 
When  our  enthusiasm  has  passed,  when  the  emotions  of  this  hour 
have  subsided,  we  shall  find  the  calm  level  of  public  opinion  below 
the  storm,  from  which  the  thoughts  of  a  mighty  people  are  to  be 
measured,  and  by  which  their  final  action  will  be  determined.  Not 
here,  in  this  brilliant  circle,  where  fifteen  thousand  men  and  women 
are  assembled,  is  the  destiny  of  the  Republic  to  be  decreed;  not  here, 
where  I  see  the  enthusiastic  faces  of  seven  hundred  and  fifty-six  dele- 
gates waiting  to  cast  their  votes  into  the  urn  and  determine  the 
choice  of  their  party;  but  by  four  million  Republican  firesides,  where 
the  thoughtful  fathers,  with  wives  and  children  about  them,  with  the 
calm  thoughts  inspired  by  love  of  home  and  love  of  country,  with  the 
history  of  the  past,  the  hopes  of  the  future,  and  the  knowledge  of  the 
great  men  who  have  adorned  and  blessed  our  nation  in  days  gone  by 
—there  God  prepares  the  verdict  that  shall  determine  the  wisdom  of 
our  work  to-night."  General  Garfield's  speech  was  courteous,  con- 
ciliatory, and  prudent,  and  it  would  have  made  votes  for  his  can- 
didate if  speeches  ever  made  votes.  The  claims  of  John  Sherman 
could  not  have  been  better  presented,  but  many  of  the  delegates  and 
many  persons  in  the  gallery  felt  that  if  Ohio  had  offered  Garfield  in- 
stead she  would  have  had  a  better  chance  to  win. 

After  the  nomination  of  Sherman  only  two  names  remained  to  be 
presented,  those  of  George  F.  Edmunds,  of  Vermont,  and  Elilm  B. 
Washburne,  of  Illinois.  The  former  was  proposed  by  Mr.  Billings  and 
the  latter  by  Mr.  Cassidy,  of  Wisconsin.  It  was  within  a  few  minutes 
of  midnight  when  the  Convention  adjourned.  A  Sunday  of  excite- 
ment and  suspense  followed,  but  when  the  sun  rose  in  a  clear  sky  on 
Monday  morning  it  was  found  that  much  of  the  boisterous  element 
had  been  eliminated  from  the  throng  in  the  streets.  In  Exposition 
Hall,  when  the  Convention  met,  there  was  still  much  of  the  eager 
expectation  of  the  previous  Wednesday,  with  little  of  the  wild  en- 
thusiasm of  Saturday.  Chairman  Hoar  came  in  ahead  of  time  and 
looked  as  serene  as  the  morning,  cooled  by  the  breezes  from  the  lake. 
As  soon  as  the  tall  form  and  silvered  locks  of  Roscoe  Conkling  were 
seen,  a  mighty  shout  was  raised,  that  was  even  heartier  and  longer 
than  the  demonstration  of  Saturday.  More  spontaneous  and  not  less 
hearty  was  the  welcome  that  was  accorded  to  Garfield.  Few  of  the 
delegates  showed  in  their  faces  the  calm  defiance  of  Conkling,  or  the 


THE   GARFIELD   AND   ARTHUR   CAMPAIGN.  387 

dark  and  lowering  determination  of  Logan.  There  was  a  spirit  of 
unrest  among  Mr.  Elaine's  friends  that  showed  their  alternations  of 
hope  and  fear.  Before  the  balloting  the  chair  announced  that  no  de- 
bate or  changing  of  votes  would  be  permitted,  and  then  the  voting- 
began  that  was  not  to  be  conclusive  until  the  next  day.  In  all  thirty- 
six  ballots  were  cast,  as  follows: 

Windom.  Garfield. 

10 

10  1 

10  1 

10  1 

10  1 

10  2 

10  2 

10  1 

10  2 

10  1 

10  2 

10  1 

10  1 


Grant. 

Blaine 

Sherman. 

Washburne.  . 

Edmu 

1  

304 

284 

93 

30 

34 

2  

305 

282 

94 

31 

32 

3  

305 

282 

93 

31 

32 

4  

305 

281 

95 

31 

32 

5  

305 

281 

95 

31 

32 

6  

305 

280 

95 

31 

32 

7  

305 

281 

94 

31 

32 

8  

306 

284 

91 

32 

31 

9  

308 

282 

90 

32 

31 

10  . 

305 

282 

92 

33 

31 

11  

305 

281 

93 

32 

31 

12  

304 

283 

92 

33 

31 

13  

305 

285 

89 

33 

31 

14  

305 

285 

89 

35 

31 

15  

309 

281 

88 

36 

31 

16  

306 

283 

88 

36 

31 

17  

303 

284 

90 

36 

31 

18  

305 

283 

91 

35 

31 

19  

305 

279 

96 

32 

31 

20  

308 

276 

93 

35 

31 

21  

305 

276 

96 

35 

31 

22  

305 

275 

97 

35 

31 

23  

304 

275 

97 

36 

31 

24  

305 

279 

93 

35 

31 

25  

302 

281 

94 

35 

31 

26  

303 

280 

93 

36 

31 

27  

306 

277 

93 

36 

31 

28  

307 

279 

91 

35 

31 

29  

305 

278 

116 

35 

12 

30  

306 

279 

120 

33 

11 

31  

308 

276 

118 

37 

11 

32  

309 

270 

117 

44 

11 

33  

309 

276 

110 

44 

11 

34  

312 

275 

107 

30 

11 

35  

313 

257 

99 

23 

11 

36.. 

306 

42 

3 

5 

— 

1 
1 
1 
1 

2 

2 
2 
2 
2 
2 
2 
2 
1 
1 
1 

17 

50 

399 


388  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

There  were  a  few  scattering  votes  besides  those  for  Garfield  dur- 
ing the  balloting,  one  for  General  Harrison,  of  Indiana,  on  the  third 
ballot;  one  for  President  Hayes  on  the  tenth,  eleventh,  and  twelfth 
ballots;  one  for  George  W.  McCrary,  of  Iowa,  on  the  thirteenth  bal- 
lot; one  for  Edmund  J.  Davis,  of  Texas,  on  the  seventeenth  ballot, 
and  one  for  Governor  Hartranft,  of  Pennsylvania,  on  the  nineteenth, 
twentieth,  twenty-first,  and  twenty-second  ballots.  An  examination 
of  the  foregoing  table  will  show  that  Grant's  vote  never  rose  above 
313  nor  fell  below  303.  Elaine's  strength  was  increased  only  twice, 
on  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  ballots,  and  then  only  by  a  single 
vote.  The  voting  was  almost  without  incident.  On  the  first  ballot 
the  vote  of  New  York  was  cast  51  for  Grant,  17  for  Elaine,  and  2  for 
Sherman;  Pennsylvania  voted  32  for  Grant,  23  for  Elaine,  and  3  for 
Sherman.  The  first  vote  cast  for  General  Garfield  was  by  Mr.  Grier, 
of  Pennsylvania.  General  Garfield  took  no  heed  of  the  votes  given 
him  singly  or  in  pairs,  but  when  he  received  seventeen  votes  on  the 
thirty-fourth  ballot  he  challenged  the  right  of  delegates  to  vote  for 
him  without  his  consent,  but  was  overruled  by  the  chair.  The  next 
ballot  showed  that  a  break  was  imminent,  and  then  it  came.  On  the 
thirty-sixth  and  last  ballot  Connecticut  led  off  with  11  votes  for 
Garfield.  The  storm,  however,  did  not  break  until  Illinois  gave  him 
most  of  her  Washburne  vote,  and  General  Harrison  cast  for  him  29 
of  the  30  votes  of  Indiana.  Iowa,  Maine,  Maryland,  Massachusetts, 
Michigan,  Minnesota,  and  Mississippi  all  followed  with  large  addi- 
tions to  Garfield's  strength.  When  Ohio  was  called  there  was  some 
delay,  but  the  delegation  finally  came  round  with  forty-three  votes 
for  Garfield,  the  missing  delegate  being  Garfield  himself.  General 
Beaver  announced  the  Pennsylvania  vote  as  37  for  Grant  and  21  for 
Garfield.  When  Vermont  added  her  10  Edmunds  votes,  and  Wis- 
consin gave  Garfield  her  18,  the  work  was  complete.  The 
motion  to  make  the  nomination  unanimous  was  made  by  Mr.  Conk- 
ling,  and  seconded  by  General  Logan.  "  I  wish  you  would  say  this  is 
no  act  of  mine,"  General  Garfield  said  to  the  correspondent  of  the 
Cleveland  Herald.  "  I  wish  you  would  say  that  I  have  done  every- 
thing and  omitted  nothing  to  secure  Secretary  Sherman's  nomination. 
I  want  it  plainly  understood  that  I  have  not  sought  this  nomination, 
and  have  protested  against  the  use  of  my  name.  If  Senator  Hoar  had 
permitted  I  would  have  forbidden  anybody  to  vote  for  me.  But  he 
took  me  off  my  feet,  before  I  had  said  what  I  intended.  I  am  very 
sorrj7  it  has  occurred;  but,  if  my  position  is  fully  explained,  a  nomina- 
tion, coming  unsought  and  unexpected  like  this,  will  be  the  crown- 
ing gratification  of  my  life." 

After  the  nomination  of  Garfield  the  Convention  took  a  recess  for 


THE  GARFIELD  AND  ARTHUR  CAMPAIGN. 


389 


consultation  in  regard  to  the  candidate  for  the  Vice-Presidency.  It 
was  agreed  by  a  majority  of  the  delegates  to  concede  the  candidate 
to  Grant's  friends,  and  Mr.  Conkling  named  Chester  A.  Arthur,  of 
New  York.  There  was  only  one  ballot,  the  vote  being:  For  Chester  A. 
Arthur,  468;  Elihu  B.  Washburne,  of  Illinois,  199;  Marshall  Jewell,  of 
Connecticut,  43;  Horace  Maynard,  of  Tennessee,  30;  Edmund  J.  Davis, 
of  Texas,  20;  Blanche  K.  Bruce,  of  Mississippi,  8;  James  L.  Alcorn,  of 
Mississippi,  4;  Thomas  Settle,  of  Florida,  2,  and  Stewart  L.  Woodford, 
of  New  York,  1.  The  nomination  was  made  unanimous,  and  the 
Convention  adjourned. 

The  nomination  of  General  Garfield  was  not  expected  by  the  coun- 
try, but  it  was  accepted  by  the  opponents  of  a  third  term  for  General 
Grant  as  the  best  that  could  have 
been  made,  when  it  was  found 
that  Mr.  Blaine  could  not  be  nom- 
inated. Garfield  had  a  brilliant 
military  history.  He  had  the 
prestige  of  a  distinguished  career 
in  Congress,  and  for  ten  years  he 
had  ranked  among  the  foremost 
of  the  Republican  leaders.  He 
was  conspicuous  for  eloquence, 
for  wide  knowledge  of  the  legis- 
lative and  administrative  history 
and  needs  of  the  country,  and 
for  his  liberal  and  progressive 
Republicanism.  No  candidate 
that  could  have  been  named 
at  the  time  possessed  so  many 
elements  of  popularity  with  the 
people. 

The  selection  of  General  Arthur  as  Garfield's  associate  on  the 
ticket  was  received  in  some  quarters  with  dismay.  He  was  regarded 
by  a  large  section  of  the  party  as  unfitted  by  political  instincts  and 
training  for  a  place  on  the  ticket.  He  had  held  only  one  political 
position,  that  of  Collector  of  the  Port  of  New  York,  from  which  he 
had  been  removed  by  Secretary  Sherman.  He  had  been  connected 
with  Governor  Morgan's  administration  during  the  war,  serving  with 
ability  and  credit  as  Quartermaster-General  of  the  State  of  New  York. 
He  had  been  graduated  at  Union  College,  and  held  respectable  rank 
at  the  New  York  Bar.  The  only  objection  to  his  fitness  was  the  fact 
that  he  had  been  the  active  leader  of  the  party  in  the  politics  of  New 
York  City.  This  objection  was  too  narrow  to  have  weight  in  the 
canvass,  and  the  feeling  of  dissatisfaction  soon  passed  away. 


CHESTER    A.    ARTHUR. 


390  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

On  the  day  following  the  adjournment  of  the  Republican  National 
Convention  the  Greenback  party  met  at  Chicago  and  nominated 
James  B.  Weaver,  of  Iowa,  for  President,  and  B.  J.  Chambers,  of 
Texas,  for  Vice-President.  The  Prohibitionists  nominated  Neal  Dow, 
of  Maine,  and  A.  M.  Thompson,  of  Ohio,  for  President  and  Vice-Presi- 
dent at  Cleveland  on  June  17,  and  finally  came  the  Democratic  Na- 
tional Convention  at  Cincinnati,  on  the  22d.  The  nomination  of  Gen. 
Winfield  S.  Hancock  for  President  was  made  by  changes  after  the 
roll-call  on  the  second  ballot,  the  results  of  the  balloting  being  as 
follows: 

Candidates.  Ballots.        After 

1st.         2d.  drug's 

Winfield  S.  Hancock,  Pennsylvania 171         320         705 

Thomas  F.  Bayard,  Delaware 153|       113  2 

Henry  F.  Payne,  Ohio 81 

Allen  G.  Thurman,  Ohio 68^         50 

Stephen  J.  Field,  California 65  65^ 

William  R.  Morrison,  Illinois 62 

Thomas  A.  Hendricks,  Indiana 50£        31  30 

Samuel  J.  Til  den,  New  York 38  6  1 

Horatio  Seymour,  New  York 8 

Samuel  J.  Randall,  Pennsylvania 128-j 

Scattering 31  22 

William  H.  English,  of  Indiana,  was  nominated  for  Vice-President, 
his  only  opponent  being  Richard  M.  Bishop,  of  Ohio,  who  was  with- 
drawn before  the  close  of  the  ballot. 

The  Democratic  platform  of  1880  was  in  marked  contrast  with  the 
elaborate  pronouncement  of  187f.  It  contained  a  compact  and 
energetic  denunciation  of  the  "  grand  fraud  of  1876-7,"  and  declared 
in  favor  of  "  honest  money,  consisting  of  gold  and  silver,  and  paper 
convertible  into  coin  on  demand,"  and  of  "  a  tariff  for  revenue  only." 
It  was  upon  this  tariff  plank  that  the  canvass  turned,  and  finally 
ended  in  General  Hancock's  defeat.  General  Hancock's  nomination 
was  received  by  the  Democrats  with  a  heartiness  that  amounted  to 
enthusiasm.  As  a  soldier  candidate  his  military  record  was  without 
a  flaw.  Brave,  gallant,  and  patriotic,  a  soldier  distinguished  in  the 
Peninsula  campaign,  at  Antietam,  in  the  decisive  action  that  marked 
the  bloody  fighting  on  the  third  day  at  Gettysburg,  and  in  General 
Grant's  final  campaign  from  the  Wilderness  to  Appomattox,  and  a 
chivalrous  gentleman,  he  was  a  worthy  representative  of  that  class 
of  War  Democrats  who  never  regarded  the  war  as  a  failure,  and 
never  faltered  in  their  devotion  to  the  Union  by  seeking  an  armistice 


THE   GARFIELD   AND   ARTHUR   CAMPAIGN.  391 

from  the  enemy.  A  graduate  of  West  Point,  and  brevetted  for  gal- 
lant conduct  at  Contreras  and  Cherubusco,  in  the  Mexican  war,  he  had 
fulfilled,  during  the  rebellion,  all  the  promises  of  his  military  edu- 
cation and  all  the  expectations  of  his  early  career.  He  was  the 
strongest  candidate  who  could  have  been  nominated  by  the  Demo- 
crats, and  during  the  early  weeks  of  the  canvass  it  looked  as  if  his 
election  was  a  foregone  conclusion. 

The  campaign  of  1880  was  one  of  extraordinary  bitterness.  Gen- 
eral Garfleld  was  assailed  even  more  savagely  than  was  Fremont  in 
1856,  or  Grant  in  1872.  At  one  time  the  figures  "  329  "  were  chalked 
on  the  sidewalks,  painted  on  dead  walls,  and  printed  in  bold  type  in 
Democratic  newspapers  everywhere.  These  figures  were  intended 
to  represent  the  number  of  dollars  Garfield  was  alleged  to  have  re- 
ceived as  a  Credit  Mobilier  dividend.  He  was  accused  of  complicity 
with  corrupt  contracts  as  a  member  of  Congress,  and  with  impro- 
prieties of  many  kinds  and  degrees.  Finally  the  famous  forged 
"  Morey  Letter  "  was  lithographed  and  printed,  and  scattered  broad- 
cast, especially  in  the  Pacific  States,  to  convey  the  impression  that 
Garfield  was  in  favor  of  "  Chinese  cheap  labor."  Morey  was  a  myth, 
but  Garfield's  handwriting  was  imitated  with  such  success  that  the 
genuineness  of  the  forgery  was  vouched  for  by  Abram  S.  Hewitt  and 
Samuel  J.  Randall,  among  others.  In  California  the  forged  letter 
had  the  effect  of  giving  the  electoral  vote  of  the  State  to  General 
Hancock,  because  it  was  impossible  to  disavow  the  forgery  in  time 
to  reach  the  voters. 

At  the  outset  the  auspices  were  not  favorable  for  Republican  suc- 
cess. In  Maine  the  September  election  for  Governor  and  members  of 
the  Legislature  was  adverse,  the  Democrats  electing  their  candidate 
for  Governor  by  the  narrow  margin  of  164  votes.  The  discourage- 
ment occasioned  by  the  unexpected  result  in  Maine  was  only  momen- 
tary, and  was  followed  by  special  exertions  to  carry  the  two  October 
States,  Ohio  and  Indiana.  Mr.  Conkling,  who  had  been  "  sulking  in 
his  tent,"  was  induced  to  take  the  stump,  and,  in  company  with  Gen- 
eral Grant,  made  a  campaigning  tour  in  Ohio.  The  Camerons,  father 
and  son,  also  made  speeches  in  Ohio  and  Indiana.  Both  States  were 
carried  by  the  Republicans,  results  that  made  the  canvass  more  hope- 
ful, but  not  entirely  assured. 

The  Democrats  expected  to  make  the  campaign  turn  on  the  "  grand 
fraud  of  1876-7,"  as  the  question  that  "  precedes  and  dwarfs  every 
other,"  but  the  people  were  indifferent  to  this  "  fraud  issue,"  while 
the  Republicans  succeeded  in  concentrating  the  interest  of  the  coun- 
try on  a  Protective  Tariff,  which  was  menaced  by  the  tariff -for-rev- 
enue-only  plank  of  the  Democratic  platform.  It  was  unquestionably 


392  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

the  introduction  of  this  issue  into  the  canvass  that  saved  Garfield 
and  Arthur  from  defeat. 

General  Garfield  had  a  small  plurality  of  the  popular  vote  over 
General  Hancock;  but  Garfleld  and  Arthur  carried  twenty  States, 
with  214  electoral  votes,  while  Hancock  and  English  carried  nineteen 
States  with  155  electoral  votes.  Hancock  had  the  vote  of  the  "  Solid 
South,"  and  Garfield  carried  all  the  other  States,  except  New  Jersey, 
Nevada,  and  five  of  the  six  votes  of  California. 

The  electoral  count  was  under  the  rule  adopted  in  February,  1881, 
but  was  entirely  devoid  of  incident 


DOCUMENTARY  HISTORY  OF  THE  EPOCH. 

REPUBLICAN  PLATFORM  OF  1876. 

When,  in  the  economy  of  Providence,  this  land  was  to  be  purged  of 
human  slavery,  and  when  the  strength  of  the  government  of  the  peo- 
ple, by  the  people,  and  for  the  people,  was  to  be  demonstrated,  the 
Republican  party  came  into  power.  Its  deeds  have  passed  into  his- 
tory, and  we  look  back  to  them  with  pride.  Incited  by  their  mem- 
ories to  high  aims  for  the  good  of  our  country  and  mankind,  and  look- 
ing to  the  future  with  unfaltering  courage,  hope,  and  purpose,  we, 
the  representatives  of  the  party,  in  National  Convention  assembled, 
make  the  following  declaration  of  principles: 

1.  The  United  States  of  America  is  a  nation,  not  a  league.    By  the 
combined  workings  of  the  National  and  State  Governments,  under 
their  respective  constitutions,  the  rights  of  every  citizen  are  secured, 
at  home  and  abroad,  and  the  common  welfare  promoted. 

2.  The  Republican  party  has  preserved  these  governments  to  the 
hundredth  anniversary  of  the  nation's  birth,  and  they  are  now  em- 
bodiments of  the  great  truths  spoken  at  its  cradle — "  That  all  men  are 
created  equal;  that  they  are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with  certain 
inalienable  rights,  among  which  are  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of 
happiness;  that  for  the  attainment  of  these  ends  governments  have 
been  instituted  among  men,  deriving  their  just  powers  from  the  con- 
sent of  the  governed."     Until  these  truths  are  cheerfully  obeyed,  or, 
if  need  be,  vigorously  enforced,  the  work  of  the  Republican  party  is 
unfinished. 

3.  The  permanent  pacification  of  the  southern  section  of  the  Union, 
and  the  complete  protection  of  all  its  citizens  in  the  free  enjoyment 
of  all  their  rights,  is  a  duty  to  which  the  Republican  party  stands 
sacredly  pledged.     The  power  to  provide  for  the  enforcement  of  the 
principles  embodied    in  the    recent    constitutional  amendments  is 
vested,  by  those  amendments,  in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States; 
and  we  declare  it  to  be  the  solemn  obligation  of  the  legislative  and 
executive  departments  of  the  government  to  put  into  immediate  and 
vigorous  exercise  all  their  constitutional  powers  for  removing  any 
just  causes  of  discontent  on  the  part  of  any  class,  and  for  securing  to 
every  American  citizen  complete  liberty  and  exact  equality  in  the 
exercise  of  all  civil,  political,  and  public  rights.     To  this  end  we  im- 
peratively demand  a  Congress  and  a  Chief  Executive  whose  courage 
and  fidelity  to  these  duties  shall  not  falter  until  these  results  are 
placed  beyond  dispute  or  recall. 

4.  In  the  first  act  of  Congress  signed  by  President  Grant,  the  Na- 


394  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

tional  Government  assumed  to  remove  any  doubt  of  its  purpose  to  dis- 
charge all  just  obligations  to  the  public  creditors,  and  "  solemnly 
pledged  its  faith  to  make  provision  at  the  earliest  practicable  period 
for  the  redemption  of  the  United  States  notes  in  coin."  Commercial 
prosperity,  public  morals,  and  national  credit  demand  that  this 
promise  be  fulfilled  by  a  continuous  and  steady  progress  to  specie  pay- 
ment. 

5.  Under  the  constitution,  the  President  and  heads  of  departments 
are  to  make  nominations  for  office,  the  Senate  is  to  advise  and  consent 
to  appointments,  and  the  House  of  Representatives  is  to  accuse  and 
prosecute  faithless  officers.  The  best  interests  of  the  public  service 
demand  that  these  distinctions  be  respected;  that  Senators  and  Rep- 
resentatives who  may  be  judges  and  accusers  should  not  dictate  ap- 
pointments to  office.  The  invariable  rule  in  appointments  should 
have  reference  to  the  honesty,  fidelity,  and  capacity  of  the  appointees, 
giving  to  the  party  in  power  those  places  where  harmony  and  vigor 
of  administration  require  its  policy  to  be  represented,  but  permitting 
all  others  to  be  filled  by  persons  selected  with  sole  reference  to  the 
efficiency  of  the  public  service,  and  the  right  of  all  citizens  to  share 
in  the  honor  of  rendering  faithful  service  to  the  country. 

C.  We  rejoice  in  the  quickened  conscience  of  the  people  concerning 
political  affairs,  and  will  hold  all  public  officers  to  a  rigid  responsibil- 
ity, and  engage  that  the  prosecution  and  punishment  of  all  who  be- 
tray official  trusts  shall  be  swift,  thorough,  and  unsparing. 

7.  The  public  school  system  of  the  several  States  is  the  bulwark  of 
the  American  Republic,  and,  with  a  view  to  its  security  and  perma- 
nence, we  recommend  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  forbidding  the  application  of  any  public  funds  or  property  for 
the  benefit  of  any  schools  or  institutions  under  sectarian  control. 

8.  The  revenue  necessary  for  current  expenditures,  and  the  obliga- 
tions of  the  public  debt,  must  be  largely  derived  from  duties  upon  im- 
portations, which,  so  far  as  possible,  should  be  adjusted  to  promote 
the  interests  of  American  labor  and  advance  the  prosperity  of  the 
whole  country. 

9.  We  reaffirm  our  opposition  to  further  grants  of  the  public  lands 
to  corporations  and  monopolies,  and  demand  that  the  national  do- 
main be  devoted  to  free  homes  for  the  people. 

10.  It  is  the  imperative  duty  of  the  Government  so  to  modify  exist- 
ing treaties  with  European  governments,  that  the  same  protection 
shall  be  afforded  to  the  adopted  American  citizen  that  is  given  to  the 
native-born;  and  that  all  necessary  laws  should  be  passed  to  pro- 
tect emigrants  in  the  absence  of  power  in  the  States  for  that  purpose. 

11.  It  is  the  immediate  duty  of  Congress  to  fully  investigate  the  ef- 


DOCUMENTARY   HISTORY   OF   THE   EPOCH.  395 

i 

feet  of  the  immigration  and  importation  of  Mongolians  upon  the 
moral  and  material  interests  of  the  country. 

12.  The  Republican  party  recognizes,  with  approval,  the  substan- 
tial  advances   recently   made  toward   the  establishment   of   equal 
rights  for  women  by  the  many  important  amendments  effected  by  Re- 
publican legislatures  in  the  laws  which  concern  the  personal  and 
property  relations  of  wives,  mothers,  and  widows,  and  by  the  ap- 
pointment and  election  of  wromen  to  the  superintendence  of  educa- 
tion, charities,  and  other  public  trusts.     The  honest  demands  of  this 
class  of  citizens  for  additional  rights,  privileges,  and  immunities, 
should  be  treated  with  respectful  consideration. 

13.  The  constitution  confers  upon  Congress  sovereign  power  over 
the  territories  of  the  United  States  for  their  government;  and  in  the 
exercise  of  this  power  it  is  the  right  and  duty  of  Congress  to  pro- 
hibit and  extirpate,  in  the  Territories,  that  relic  of  barbarism — polyg- 
amy; and  wTe  demand  such  legislation  as  shall  secure  this  end  and  the 
supremacy  of  American  institutions  in  all  the  Territories. 

14.  The  pledges  which  the  nation  has  given  to  her  soldiers  and 
sailors  must  be  fulfilled,  and  a  grateful  people  will  alwrays  hold  those 
who  imperiled  their  lives  for  the  country's  preservation  in  the  kindest 
remembrance. 

15.  We  sincerely  deprecate  all   sectional   feeling  and   tendencies. 
We,  therefore,  note  with  deep  solicitude  that  the  Democratic  party 
counts,  as  its  chief  hope  of  success,  upon  the  electoral  vote  of  a  united 
South,  secured  through  the  efforts  of  those  who  were  recently  arrayed 
against  the  nation;  and  we  invoke  the  earnest  attention  of  the  country 
to  the  grave  truth  that  a  success  thus  achieved  would  reopen  sec- 
tional strife,  and  imperil  national  honor  and  human  rights. 

16.  We  charge  the  Democratic  party  with  being  the  same  in  char- 
acter and  spirit  as  when  it  sympathized  with  treason;  with  making  its 
control  of  the  House  of  Representatives  the  triumph  and  opportunity 
of  the  nation's  recent  foes;  with  reasserting  and  applauding,  in  the  na- 
tional capital,  the  sentiments  of  unrepentant  rebellion;  with  sending 
Union  soldiers  to  the  rear,  and  promoting  Confederate  soldiers  to  the 
front;  with  deliberately  proposing  to  repudiate  the  plighted  faith  of 
the  Government;  with  being  equally  false  and  imbecile  upon  the 
overshadowing  financial  questions;  with  thwarting  the  ends  of  jus- 
tice by  its  partisan  mismanagement  and  obstruction  of  investigation; 
with  proving  itself  through  the  period  of  its  ascendency  in  the  lower 
house  of  Congress,  utterly  incompetent  to  administer  the  government; 
and  we  warn  the  country  against  trusting  a  party  thus  alike  un- 
worthy, recreant,  and  incapable. 

17.  The  National  Administration  merits  commendation  for  its  hon- 


396  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

orable  work  in  the  management  of  domestic  and  foreign  affairs,  and 
President  Grant  deserves  the  continued  hearty  gratitude  of  the 
American  people  for  his  patriotism  and  his  eminent  services  in  war 
and  in  peace. 

18.  We  present,  as  our  candidates  for  President  and  Vice-Presi- 
dent  of  the  United  States,  two  distinguished  statesmen,  of  eminent 
ability  and  character,  and  conspicuously  fitted  for  those  high  offices, 
and  we  confidently  appeal  to  the  American  people  to  intrust  the  ad- 
ministration of  their  public  affairs  to  Rutherford  B.  Hayes  and  Will- 
iam A.  Wheeler. 

DEMOCRATIC  PLATFORM  OF  1876. 

We,  the  delegates  of  the  Democratic  party  of  the  United  States,  in 
National  Convention  assembled,  do  hereby  declare  the  administra- 
tion of  the  Federal  Government  to  be  in  urgent  need  of  immediate 
reform;  do  hereby  enjoin  upon  the  nominees  of  this  Convention,  and 
of  the  Democratic  party  in  each  State,  a  zealous  effort  and  co-opera- 
tion to  this  end;  and  do  hereby  appeal  to  our  fellow-citizens  of  every 
former  political  connection  to  undertake,  with  us,  this  first  and  most 
pressing  patriotic  duty. 

For  the  Democracy  of  the  whole  country,  we  do  here  reaffirm  our 
faith  in  the  permanence  of  the  Federal  Union,  our  devotion  to  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  with  its  amendments  universally 
accepted  as  a  final  settlement  of  the  controversies  that  engendered 
civil  war,  and  do  here  record  our  steadfast  confidence  in  the  per- 
petuity of  republican  self-government. 

In  absolute  acquiescence  in  the  will  of  the  majority — the  vital 
principle  of  republics;  in  the  supremacy  of  the  civil  over  the  military 
authority;  in  the  total  separation  of  church  and  state,  for  the  sake 
alike  of  civil  and  religious  freedom;  in  the  equality  of  all  citizens 
before  just  laws  of  their  own  enactment;  in  the  liberty  of  individual 
conduct,  unvexed  by  sumptuary  laws;  in  the  faithful  education  of  the 
rising  generation,  that  they  may  preserve,  enjoy,  and  transmit  these 
best  conditions  of  human  happiness  and  hope — wre  behold  the  noblest 
products  of  a  hundred  years  of  changeful  history;  but  while  uphold- 
ing the  bond  of  our  Union  and  great  charter  of  these,  our  rights, 
it  behooves  a  free  people  to  practice  also  that  eternal  vigilance  which 
is  the  price  of  liberty. 

Reform  is  necessary  to  rebuild  and  establish  in  the  hearts  of  the 
whole  people  the  Union,  eleven  years  ago  happily  rescued  from  the 
danger  of  a  secession  of  States,  but  now  to  be  saved  from  a  corrupt 
centralism  which,  after  inflicting  upon  ten  States  the  rapacity  of 
carpet-bag  tyranny,  has  honeycombed  the  offices  of  the  Federal 


DOCUMENTARY   HISTORY   OF  THE   EPOCH.  397 

Government  itself  with  incapacity,  waste,  and  fraud;  infected  States 
and  municipalities  with  the  contagion  of  misrule,  and  locked  fast  the 
prosperity  of  an  industrious  people  in  the  paralysis  of  "  hard  times." 

Reform  is  necessary  to  establish  a  sound  currency,  restore  the  pub- 
lic credit,  and  maintain  the  national  honor. 

We  denounce  the  failure,  for  all  these  eleven  years  of  peace,  to 
make  good  the  promise  of  the  legal  tender  notes,  which  are  a  chang- 
ing standard  of  value  in  the  hands  of  the  people,  and  the  non-payment 
of  which  is  a  disregard  of  the  plighted  faith  of  the  nation. 

We  denounce  the  improvidence  which,  in  eleven  years  of  peace,  has 
taken  from  the  people,  in  Federal  taxes,  thirteen  times  the  whole 
amount  of  the  legal-tender  notes,  and  squandered  four  times  their 
sum  in  useless  expense  without  accumulating  any  reserve  for  their  re- 
demption. 

We  denounce  the  financial  imbecility  and  immorality  of  that  party 
which,  during  eleven  years  of  peace,  has  made  no  advance  toward  re- 
sumption, no  preparation  for  resumption,  but,  instead,  has  obstructed 
resumption,  by  \vasting  our  resources  and  exhausting  all  our  surplus 
income;  and,  while  annually  professing  to  intend  a  speedy  return 
to  specie  payments,  has  annually  enacted  fresh  hindrances  thereto. 
As  such  hindrance  we  denounce  the  resumption  clause  of  1875,  and 
we  here  demand  its  repeal. 

We  demand  a  judicious  system  of  preparation,  by  public  economies, 
by  official  retrenchments,  and  by  wise  finance,  which  shall  enable  the 
nation  soon  to  assure  the  whole  world  of  its  perfect  ability  and  of  its 
perfect  readiness  to  meet  any  of  its  promises  at  the  call  of  the  creditor 
entitled  to  payment.  WTe  believe  such  a  system,  well  devised,  and, 
above  all,  intrusted  to  competent  hands  for  execution,  creating,  at  no 
time,  an  artificial  scarcity  of  currency,  and  at  no  time  alarming  the 
public  mind  into  a  withdrawal  of  that  vaster  machinery  of  credit  by 
which  ninety-five  per  cent,  of  all  business  transactions  are  performed. 
A  system  open,  public,  and  inspiring  general  confidence,  would,  from 
the  day  of  its  adoption,  bring  healing  on  its  wings  to  all  our  harassed 
industries — set  in  motion  the  wheels  of  commerce,  manufactures,  and 
the  mechanic  arts,  restore  employment  to  labor,  and,  renew,  in  all 
its  natural  sources,  the  prosperity  of  the  people. 

Reform  is  necessary  in  the  sum  and  modes  of  Federal  taxation,  to 
the  end  that  capital  may  be  set  free  from  distrust  and  labor  lightly 
burdened. 

WTe  denounce  the  present  tariff,  levied  upon  nearly  four  thousand 
articles,  as  a  masterpiece  of  injustice,  inequality,  and  false  pretense. 
It  yields  a  dwindling,  not  a  yearly  rising,  revenue.  It  has  impover- 
ished many  industries  to  subsidize  a  few.  It  prohibits  imports  that 


398  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

might  purchase  the  products  of  American  labor.  It  has  degraded 
Americau  commerce  from  the  first  to  an  inferior  rank  on  the  high 
seas.  It  has  cut  down  the  sales  of  American  manufactures  at  home 
and  abroad,  and  depleted  the  returns  of  American  agriculture— 
an  industry  followed  by  half  our  people.  It  costs  the  people  five 
times  more  than  it  produces  to  the  treasury,  obstructs  the  processes 
of  production,  and  wastes  the  fruits  of  labor.  It  promotes  fraud, 
fosters  smuggling,  enriches  dishonest  officials,  and  bankrupts  honest 
merchants.  We  demand  that  all  customhouse  taxation  shall  be 
only  for  revenue. 

Reform  is  necessary  in  the  scale  of  public  expense — Federal,  State, 
and  Municipal.  Our  Federal  taxation  has  swollen  from  sixty  mill- 
ions gold,  in  1800,  to  four  hundred  and  fifty  millions  currency,  in 
1870;  our  aggregate  taxation  from  one  hundred  and  fifty-four  mill- 
ions gold,  in  1860,  to  seven  hundred  and  thirty  millions  currency,  in 
1870 — or,  in  one  decade,  from  less  than  five  dollars  per  head  to  more 
than  eighteen  dollars  per  head.  Since  the  peace,  the  people  have 
paid  to  their  tax-gatherers  more  than  thrice  the  sum  of  the  national 
debt,  and  more  than  twice  that  sum  for  the  Federal  Government 
alone.  We  demand  a  rigorous  frugality  in  every  department  and 
from  every  officer  of  the  Government. 

Reform  is  necessary  to  put  a  stop  to  the  profligate  waste  of  public 
lands,  and  their  diversion  from  actual  settlers,  by  the  party  in  power, 
which  has  squandered  200,000,000  of  acres  upon  railroads  alone,  and, 
out  of  more  than  thrice  that  aggregate,  has  disposed  of  less  than  a 
sixth  directly  to  tillers  of  the  soil. 

Reform  is  necessary  to  correct  the  omission  of  a  Republican  Con- 
gress, and  the  errors  of  our  treaties  and  our  diplomacy  which  have 
stripped  our  fellow-citizens  of  foreign  birth  and  kindred  race,  re- 
crossing  the  Atlantic,  of  the  shield  of  American  citizenship,  and  have 
exposed  our  brethren  of  the  Pacific  coast  to  the  incursions  of  a  race 
not  sprung  from  the  same  great  parent  stock,  and  in  fact  now,  by 
law,  denied  citizenship  through  naturalization,  as  being  neither  ac- 
customed to  the  traditions  of  a  progressive  civilization  nor  exercised 
in  liberty  under  equal  laws.  We  denounce  the  policy  which  thus 
discards  the  liberty-loving  German  and  tolerates  a  revival  of  the 
coolie  trade  in  Mongolian  women,  imported  for  immoral  purposes, 
and  Mongolian  men,  held  to  perform  servile  labor  contracts,  and  de- 
mand such  modification  of  the  treaty  with  the  Chinese  Empire,  or 
such  legislation  within  constitutional  limitations,  as  shall  prevent 
further  importation  or  immigration  of  the  Mongolian  race. 

Reform  is  necessary,  and  can  never  be  effected  but  by  making  it 
the  controlling  issue  of  the  elections,  and  lifting  it  above  the  two  false 


DOCUMENTARY    HISTORY   OF   THE   EPOCH.  399 

issues  with  which  the  office-holding  class  and  the  party  in  power  seek 
to  smother  it. 

1.  The  false  issue  with  which  they  would  enkindle  sectarian  strife 
in  respect  to  the  public  schools,  of  which  the  establishment  and 
support  belongs  exclusively  to  the  several   States,  and  which  the 
Democratic  party  has  cherished  from  their  foundation,  and  is  re- 
solved to  maintain,  without  prejudice  or  preference  for  any  class, 
sect,  or  creed,  and  without  largesses  from  the  treasury  to  any. 

2.  The  false  issue  by  which  they  seek  to  light  anew  the  dying  em- 
bers of  sectional  hate  between  kindred  peoples  once  estranged,  but 
now  reunited  in  one  indivisible  republic  and  a  common  destiny. 

Reform  is  necessary  in  the  civil  service.  Experience  proves  that 
efficient,  economical  conduct  of  the  governmental  business  is  not  pos- 
sible if  its  civil  service  be  subject  to  change  at  every  election,  be  a 
prize  fought  for  at  the  ballot-box,  be  a  brief  reward  of  party  zeal, 
instead  of  posts  of  honor  assigned  for  proved  competency,  and  held 
for  fidelity  in  the  public  employ;  that  the  dispensing  of  patronage 
should  neither  be  a  tax  upon  the  time  of  all  our  public  men,  nor  the 
instrument  of  their  ambition.  Here,  again,  promises,  falsified  in  the 
performance,  attest  that  the  party  in  power  can  work  out  no  prac- 
tical or  salutary  reform. 

Reform  is  necessary,  even  more,  in  the  higher  grades  of  the  public 
service.  President,  Vice-President,  Judges,  Senators,  Representa- 
tives, Cabinet  Officers — these,  and  all  others  in  authority — are  the 
people's  servants.  Their  offices  are  not  a  private  perquisite;  they  are 
a  public  trust.  AVhen  the  annals  of  this  Republic  show  the  disgrace 
and  censure  of  a  Vice-President;  a  late  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives marketing  his  rulings  as  a  presiding  officer;  three  Sen- 
ators profiting  secretly  by  their  votes  as  law-makers;  five  chairmen 
of  the  leading  committees  of  the  late  House  of  Representatives  ex- 
posed in  jobbery;  a  late  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  forcing  balances 
in  the  public  accounts;  a  late  Attorney-General  misappropriating 
public  funds;  a  Secretary  of  the  Navy  enriched,  or  enriching  friends, 
by  percentages  levied  off  the  profits  of  contractors  with  his  depart- 
ment; an  Ambassador  to  England  concerned  in  a  dishonorable 
speculation;  the  President's  private  secretary  barely  escaping  con- 
viction upon  trial  for  guilty  complicity  in  frauds  upon  the  revenue; 
a  Secretary  of  War  impeached  for  high  crimes  and  misdemeanors— 
the  demonstration  is  complete,  that  the  first  step  in  reform  must  be 
the  people's  choice  of  honest  men  from  another  party,  lest  the  disease 
of  one  political  organization  infect  the  body  politic,  and  lest  by  mak- 
ing no  change  of  men  or  parties  we  get  no  change  of  measures  and  no 
real  reform. 


400  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

All  these  abuses,  wrongs,  and  crimes — the  product  of  sixteen  years' 
ascendency  of  the  Republican  party — create  a  necessity  for  reform, 
confessed  by  the  Republicans  themselves;  but  their  reformers  are 
voted  down  in  convention  and  displaced  from  the  cabinet.  The 
party's  mass  of  honest  voters  is  powerless  to  resist  the  80,000  office- 
holders, its  leaders  and  guides. 

Reform  can  only  be  had  by  a  peaceful  civic  revolution.  We  de- 
mand a  change  of  system,  a  change  of  administration,  a  change  of 
parties,  that  we  may  have  a  change  of  measures  and  of  men. 

AY-vo/m/,  That  this  Convention,  representing  the  Democratic  party 
of  the  United  States,  do  cordially  indorse  the  action  of  the  present 
House  of  Representatives,  in  reducing  and  curtailing  the  expenses 
of  the  Federal  Government,  in  cutting  down  salaries  and  extrava- 
gant appropriations,  and  in  abolishing  useless  offices  and  places  not 
required  by  the  public  necessities;  and  we  shall  trust  to  the  firmness 
of  the  Democratic  members  of  the  House  that  no  committee  of  con- 
ference and  no  misinterpretation  of  the  rules  will  be  allowed  to  de- 
feat these  wholesome  measures  of  economy  demanded  by  the  country. 

AY.so/m/,  That  the  soldiers  and  sailors  of  the  Republic,  and  the 
widows  and  orphans  of  those  who  have  fallen  in  battle,  have  a  just 
claim  upon  the  care,  protection,  and  gratitude  of  their  fellow-citi- 
zens. 

REPUBLICAN  PLATFORM  OF  1880. 

The  Republican  party,  in  National  Convention  assembled,  at  the 
end  of  twenty  years  since  the  Federal  Government  was  first  com- 
mitted to  its  charge,  submits  to  the  people  of  the  United  States  its 
brief  report  of  its  administration: 

It  suppressed  a  rebellion  which  had  armed  nearly  a  million  of  men 
to  subvert  the  national  authority.  It  reconstructed  the  union  of  the 
States  with  freedom,  instead  of  slavery,  as  its  cornerstone.  It  trans- 
formed four  million  of  human  beings  from  the  likeness  of  things  to 
the  rank  of  citizens.  It  relieved  Congress  from  the  infamous  work  of 
hunting  fugitive  slaves,  and  charged  it  to  see  that  slavery  does  not 
exist. 

It  has  raised  the  value  of  our  paper  currency  from  thirty-eight  per 
cent,  to  the  par  of  gold.  It  has  restored  upon  a  solid  basis  payment 
in  coin  for  all  the  national  obligations,  and  has  given  us  a  currency 
absolutely  good  and  equal  in  every  part  of  our  extended  country. 
It  has  lifted  the  credit  of  the  nation  from  the  point  where  six  per 
cent,  bonds  sold  at  eighty-six  to  that  where  four  per  cent,  bonds  are 
eagerly  sought  at  a  premium. 

Under  its  administration,  railways  have  increased  from  31,000 
miles  in  1860,  to  more  than  82,000  miles  in  1879. 


DOCUMENTARY   HISTORY   OF  THE  EPOCH.  401 

Our  foreign  trade  has  increased  from  f  700,000,000  to  $1,150,000,000 
in  the  same  time;  and  our  exports,  which  were  $20,000,000  less  than 
our  imports  in  1860,  were  $204,000,000  more  than  our  imports  in  1879. 

Without  resorting  to  loans,  it  has,  since  the  war  closed,  defrayed 
the  ordinary  expenses  of  Government,  besides  the  accruing  inter- 
est on  the  public  debt,  and  disbursed,  annually,  over  $30,000,000 
for  soldiers'  pensions.  It  has  paid  $888,000,000  of  the  public  debt, 
and,  by  refunding  the  balance  at  lower  rates,  has  reduced  the  annual 
interest  charge  from  nearly  $151,000,000  to  less  than  $89,000,000. 

All  the  industries  of  the  country  have  revived,  labor  is  in  demand, 
wages  have  increased,  and  throughout  the  entire  country  there  is 
evidence  of  a  coming  prosperity  greater  than  we  have  ever  enjoyed. 

Upon  this  record,  the  Republican  party  asks  for  the  continued  con- 
fidence and  support  of  the  people;  and  this  Convention  submits  for 
their  approval  the  following  statement  of  the  principles  and  purposes 
which  will  continue  to  guide  and  inspire  its  efforts: 

1.  We  affirm  that  the  work  of  the  last  twenty  years  has  been  such 
as  to  commend  itself  to  the  favor  of  the  nation,  and  that  the  fruits 
of  the  costly  victories  which  we  have  achieved,  through  immense  dif- 
ficulties, should  be  preserved;  that  the  peace  regained  should  be  cher- 
ished; that  the  dissevered  Union,  now  happily  restored,  should  be  per- 
petuated, and  that  the  liberties  secured  to  this  generation  should  be 
transmitted  undiminished  to  future  generations;  that  the  order  es- 
tablished and  the  credit  acquired  should  never  be  impaired;  that  the 
pensions  promised  should  be  paid;  that  the  debt  so  much  reduced 
should  be  extinguished  by  the  full  payment  of  every  dollar  thereof; 
that  the  reviving  industries  should  be  further  promoted;  and  that  the 
commerce,  already  so  great,  should  be  steadily  encouraged. 

2.  The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  is  a  supreme  law,  and  not  a 
mere  contract;  out  of  Confederate  States  it  made  a  sovereign  nation. 
Some  powers  are  denied  to  the  nation,  while  others  are  denied  to  the 
States;  but  the  boundary  between  the  powers  delegated  and  those  re- 
served is  to  be  determined  by  the  national  and  not  by  the  State  tri- 
bunals. 

3.  The  work  of  popular  education  is  one  left  to  the  care  of  the  sev- 
eral States,  but  it  is  the  duty  of  the  National  Government  to  aid  that 
work  to  the  extent  of  its  constitutional  ability.     The  intelligence  of 
the  nation  is  but  the  aggregate  of  the  intelligence  in  the  several 
States,  and  the  destiny  of  the  nation  must  be  guided,  not  by  the 
genius  of  any  one  State,  but  by  the  average  genius  of  all. 

4.  The  Constitution  wisely  forbids  Congress  to  make  any  law  re- 
specting an  establishment  of  religion;  but  it  is  idle  to  hope  that  the 
nation  can  be  protected  against  the  influences  of  sectarianism  while 


402  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

each  State  is  exposed  to  its  domination.  We,  therefore,  recommend 
that  the  Constitution  be  so  amended  as  to  lay  the  same  prohibition 
upon  the  Legislature  of  each  State,  to  forbid  the  appropriation  of 
public  funds  to  the  support  of  sectarian  schools. 

5.  We  reaffirm  the  belief,  avowed  in  1876,  that  the  duties  levied  for 
the  purpose  of  revenue  should  so  discriminate  as  to  favor  American 
labor;  that  no  further  grant  of  the  public  domain  should  be  made 
to  any  railway  or  other  corporation;  that  slavery  having  perished  in 
the  States,  its  twin  barbarity — polygamy — must  die  in  the  Territor- 
ies; that  everywhere  the  protection  accorded  to  citizens  of  American 
birth  must  be  secured  to  citizens  by  American  adoption.     That  we 
esteem  it  the  duty  of  Congress  to  develop  and  improve  our  water- 
courses and  harbors,  but  insist  that  further  subsidies  to  private  per- 
sons or  corporations  must  cease.     That  the  obligations  of  the  Re- 
public to  the  men  who  preserved  its  integrity  in  the  day  of  battle  are 
undiminished  by  the  lapse  of  fifteen  years  since  their  final  victory— 
to  do  them  perpetual  honor  is,  and  shall  forever  be,  the  grateful  privi- 
lege and  sacred  duty  of  the  American  people. 

6.  Since  the  authority  to  regulate  immigration  and  intercourse  be- 
tween the  United  States  and  foreign  nations  rests  with  the  Congress 
of  the  United  States  and  its  treaty-making  powers,  the  Republican 
party,  regarding  the  unrestricted  immigration  of  the  Chinese  as  an 
evil  of  great  magnitude,  invokes  the  exercise  of  that  power  to  restrain 
and  limit  that  immigration  by  the  enactment  of  such  just,  humane, 
and  reasonable  provisions  as  will  produce  that  result. 

7.  That  the  purity  and  patriotism  which  characterized  the  early 
career  of  Rutherford  B.  Hayes  in  peace  and  war,  and  which  guided 
the  thoughts  of  our  immediate  predecessors  to  select  him  for  a  Presi- 
dential candidate,  have  continued  to  inspire  him  in  his  career  as  chief 
executive,  and  that  history  will  accord  to  his  administration  the  hon- 
ors which  are  due  to  an  efficient,  just,  and  courteous  discharge  of  the 
public  business,  and  will  honor  his  interposition  between  the  people 
and  proposed  partisan  laws. 

8.  We  charge  upon  the  Democratic  party  the  habitual  sacrifice  of 
patriotism  and  justice  to  a  supreme  and  insatiable  lust  for  office  and 
patronage.     That  to  obtain  possession  of  the  National  and  State  Gov- 
ernments, and  the  control  of  place  and  position,  they  have  obstructed 
all    efforts  to  promote  the  purity  and  to  conserve  the  freedom  of 
suffrage;  have  devised  fraudulent  certifications  and  returns;  have 
labored  to  unseat  lawfully-elected  members  of  Congress,  to  secure,  at 
all  hazards,  the  vote  of  a  majority  of  the  States  in  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives; have  endeavored  to  occupy,  by  force  and  fraud,  the  places 
of  trust  given  to  others  by  the  people  of  Maine,  and  rescued  by  the 


DOCUMENTARY    HISTORY   OF  THE   EPOCH.  403 

courageous  action  of  Maine's  patriotic  sons;  have,  by  methods  vicious 
in  principle  and  tyrannical  in  practice,  attached  partisan  legislation 
to  appropriation  bills,  upon  whose  passage  the  very  movements  of 
Government  depend;  have  crushed  the  rights  of  the  individual;  have 
advocated  the  principle  and  sought  the  favor  of  rebellion  against  the 
nation,  and  have  endeavored  to  obliterate  the  sacred  memories  of  the 
war,  and  to  overcome  its  inestimably  valuable  results  of  nationality, 
personal  freedom,  and  individual  equality.  Equal,  steady,  and  com- 
plete enforcement  of  the  laws,  and  protection  of  all  our  citizens  in  the 
enjoyment  of  all  privileges  and  immunities  guaranteed  by  the  Con- 
stitution, are  the  first  duties  of  the  nation.  The  danger  of  a  Solid 
South  can  only  be  averted  by  the  faithful  performance  of  every 
promise  which  the  nation  made  to  the  citizen.  The  execution  of  the 
laws,  and  the  punishment  of  all  those  who  violate  them,  are  the  only 
safe  methods  by  which  an  enduring  peace  can  be  secured,  and  genuine 
prosperity  established  throughout  the  South.  Whatever  promises  the 
nation  makes,  the  nation  must  perform;  and  the  nation  can  not 
with  safety  relegate  this  duty  to  the  States.  The  Solid  South  must 
be  divided  by  the  peaceful  agencies  of  the  ballot,  and  all  opinions 
must  there  find  free  expression;  and  to  this  end  honest  voters  must  be 
protected  against  terrorism,  violence,  or  fraud.  And  we  affirm  it  to 
be  the  duty  and  the  purpose  of  the  Republican  party  to  use  all  legiti- 
mate means  to  restore  all  the  States  of  this  Union  to  the  most  perfect 
harmony  which  may  be  practicable;  and  we  submit  to  the  practical, 
sensible  people  of  the  United  States  to  say  whether  it  would  not  be 
dangerous  to  the  dearest  interests  of  our  country,  at  this  time  to  sur- 
render the  administration  of  the  national  Government  to  a  party 
which  seeks  to  overthrow  the  existing  policy,  under  which  we  are  so 
prosperous,  and  thus  bring  distrust  and  confusion  where  there  is  now 
order,  confidence,  and  hope. 

9.  The  Republican  party,  adhering  to  a  principle  affirmed  by  its  last 
National  Convention,  out  of  respect  for  the  constitutional  rule  cover- 
ing appointments  to  office,  adopts  the  declaration  of  President  Hayes, 
that  the  reform  of  the  civil  service  should  be  thorough,  radical,  and 
complete.  To  this  end  it  demands  the  co-operation  of  the  legislative 
with  the  executive  department  of  the  Government,  and  that  Con- 
gress shall  so  legislate  that  fitness,  ascertained  by  proper  practical 
tests,  shall  admit  to  the  public  service;  and  that  the  power  of  re- 
moval for  cause,  with  due  responsibility  for  the  good  conduct  of  sub- 
ordinates, shall  accompany  the  power  of  appointment. 

NATIONAL  (GREENBACK)  PLATFORM,  1880. 
The  civil  government  should  guarantee  the  divine  right  of  every 


404  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

laborer  to  the  results  of  his  toil,  thus  enabling  the  producers  of  wealth 
to  provide  themselves  with  the  means  for  physical  comfort,  and  facili- 
ties for  mental,  social,  and  moral  culture;  and  we  condemn,  as  un- 
worthy of  our  civilization,  the  barbarism  which  imposes  upon  wealth- 
producers  a  state  of  drudgery  as  the  price  of  a  bare  animal  existence. 
Notwithstanding  the  enormous  increase  of  productive  power  by  the 
universal  introduction  of  labor-saving  machinery  and  the  discovery  of 
new  agents  for  the  increase  of  wealth,  the  task  of  the  laborer  is 
scarcely  lightened,  the  hours  of  toil  are  but  little  shortened,  and  few- 
producers  are  lifted  from  poverty  into  comfort  and  pecuniary  inde- 
pendence. The  associated  monopolies,  the  international  syndicates, 
and  other  income  classes,  demand  dear  money,  cheap  labor,  and  a 
strong  government;  and  hence,  a  weak  people.  Corporate  control  of 
the  volume  of  money  has  been  the  means  of  dividing  society  into  hos- 
tile classes,  of  an  unjust  distribution  of  the  products  of  labor,  and 
of  building  up  monopolies  of  associated  capital,  endowed  with  power 
to  confiscate  private  property.  It  has  kept  money  scarce,  and  the 
scarcity  of  money  enforces  debt-trade,  and  public  and  corporate 
loans;  debt  engenders  usury,  and  usury  ends  in  the  bankruptcy  of  the 
borrower.  Other  results  are — deranged  markets,  uncertainty  in  man- 
ufacturing enterprises  and  agriculture,  precarious  and  intermittent 
employment  for  the  laborer,  industrial  war,  increasing  pauperism 
and  crime,  and  the  consequent  intimidation  and  disfranchisement  of 
the  producer,  and  a  rapid  declension  into  corporate  feudalism. 
Therefore,  we  declare: 

1.  That  the  right  to  make  and  issue  money  is  a  sovereign  power, 
to  be  maintained  by  the  people  for  their  common  benefit.     The  dele- 
gation of  this  right  to  corporations  is  a  surrender  of  the  central  at- 
tribute of  sovereignty,  void  of  constitutional  sanction,  and  conferring 
upon  a  subordinate  and  irresponsible  power  an  absolute  dominion 
over  industry  and  commerce.     All  money,  wrhether  metallic  or  paper, 
should  be  issued,  and  its  volume  controlled,  by  the  Government,  and 
not  by  or  through  banking  corporations;  and,  when  so  issued,  should 
be  a  full  legal  tender  for  all  debts,  public  and  private. 

2.  That  the  bonds  of  the  United  States  should  not  be  refunded, 
but  paid  as  rapidly  as  practicable,  according  to  contract.     To  enable 
the   Government  to  meet   these    obligations,  legal-tender   currency 
should  be  substituted  for  the  notes  of  the  national  banks,  the  national 
banking  system  abolished,  and  the  unlimited  coinage  of  silver,  as  well 
as  gold,  established  by  law. 

3.  That  labor  should  be  so  protected  by  National  and  State  author- 
ity as  to  equalize  its  burdens  and  insure  a  just  distribution  of  its  re- 
sults.    The  eight-hour  law  of  Congress  should  be  enforced,  the  sani- 


DOCUMENTARY    HISTORY   OF   THE   EPOCH.  405 

tary  condition  of  industrial  establishments  placed  under  rigid 
control,  the  competition  of  contract  convict  labor  abolished,  a  bureau 
of  labor  statistics  established,  factories,  mines,  and  workshops  in- 
spected, the  employment  of  children  under  fourteen  years  of  age  for- 
bidden, and  wages  paid  in  cash. 

4.  Slavery  being  simply  cheap  labor,  and  cheap  labor  being  simply 
slavery,  the  importation  and  presence  of  Chinese  serfs  necessarily 
tends  to  brutalize  and  degrade  American  labor;  therefore,  immediate 
steps  should  be  taken  to  abrogate  the  Burlingame  treaty. 

5.  Railroad  land  grants  forfeited  by  reason  of  non-fulfillment  of 
contract  should  be  immediately  reclaimed  by  the  Government,  and, 
henceforth,  the  public  domain  reserved  exclusively  as  homes  for  ac- 
tual settlers. 

6.  It  is  the  duty  of  Congress  to  regulate  interstate  commerce.    All 
lines  of  communication  and  transportation  should  be  brought  under 
such  legislative  control  as  shall  secure  moderate,  fair,  and  uniform 
rates  for  passenger  and  freight  traffic. 

7.  We  denounce  as  destructive  to  property  and  dangerous  to  lib- 
erty the  action  of  the  old  parties  in  fostering  and  sustaining  gigantic 
land,  railroad,  and  money  corporations,  and  monopolies  invested 
with,  and  exercising  powers  belonging  to  the  Government,  and  yet 
not  responsible  to  it  for  the  manner  of  their  exercise. 

8.  That  the  Constitution,  in  giving  Congress  the  power  to  borrow 
money,  to  declare  war,  to  raise  and  support  armies,  to  provide  and 
maintain  a  navy,  never  intended  that  the  men  who  loaned  their  money 
for  an  interest-consideration  should  be  preferred  to  the  soldiers  and 
sailors  who  periled  their  lives  and  shed  their  blood  on  land  and  sea  in 
defense  of  their  country;  and  we  condemn  the  cruel  class  legislation 
of  the  Republican  party,  which,  while  professing  great  gratitude  to 
the  soldier,  has  most  unjustly  discriminated  against  him  and  in  favor 
of  the  bondholder. 

9.  All  property  should  bear  its  just  proportion  of  taxation,  and  we 
demand  a  graduated  income  tax. 

10.  We  denounce  as  dangerous  the  efforts  everywhere  manifest  to 
restrict  the  right  of  suffrage. 

11.  WTe  are  opposed  to  an  increase  of  the  standing  army  in  time  of 
peace,  and  the  insidious  scheme  to  establish  an  enormous  military 
power  under  the  guise  of  militia  laws. 

12.  We  demand  absolute  democratic  rules  for  the  government  of 
Congress,  placing  all  representatives  of  the  people  upon  an  equal 
footing,  and  taking  away  from  committees  a  veto  power  greater  than 
that  of  the  President. 

13.  We  demand  a  Government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for 


406  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

the  people,  instead  of  a  Government  of  the  bondholder,  by  the  bond- 
holder, and  for  the  bondholder;  and  we  denounce  every  attempt  to  stir 
up  sectional  strife  as  an  effort  to  conceal  monstrous  crimes  against 
the  people. 

14.  In  the  furtherance  of  these  ends  we  ask  the  co-operation  of  all 
fair-minded  people.  We  have  no  quarrel  with  individuals,  wage  no 
war  on  classes,  but  only  against  vicious  institutions.  We  are  not 
content  to  endure  further  discipline  from  our  present  actual  rulers, 
who,  having  dominion  over  money,  over  transportation,  over  land 
and  labor,  over  the  press  and  the  machinery  of  government,  wield 
unwarrantable  power  over  our  institutions  and  over  life  and  prop- 
erty. 

DEMOCRATIC  PLATFORM  OF  1880. 

The  Democrats  of  the  United  States,  in  Convention  assembled,  de- 
clare: 

1.  \Ve  pledge  ourselves  anew  to  the  constitutional  doctrines  and 
traditions  of  the  Democratic  party,  as  illustrated  by  the  teachings  and 
examples  of  a  long  line  of  Democratic  statesmen  and  patriots,  and 
embodied  in  the  platform  of  the  last  National  Convention  of  the  party. 

2.  Opposition  to  centralization,  and  to  that  dangerous  spirit  of  en- 
croachment which  tends  to  consolidate  the  powers  of  all  the  depart- 
ments in  one,  and  thus  to  create,  whatever  the  form  of  government, 
a  real  despotism;  no  sumptuary  laws;  separation  of  the  church  and 
state  for  the  good  of  each;  common  schools  fostered  and  protected. 

3.  Home  rule;  honest  money,  consisting  of  gold  and  silver,  and 
paper,  convertible  into  coin  on  demand;  the  strict  maintenance  of  the 
public  faith,  State  and  National;  and  a  tariff  for  revenue  only;  the 
subordination  of  the  military  to  the  civil  power,  and  a  general  and 
thorough  reform  of  the  civil  service. 

4.  The  right  to  a  free  ballot  is  a  right  preservative  of  all  rights; 
and  must  and  shall  be  maintained  in  every  part  of  the  United  States. 

5.  The  existing  administration  is  the  representative  of  conspiracy 
only;  and  its  claim  of  right  to  surround  the  ballot-boxes  with  troops 
and  deputy-marshals,  to  intimidate  and  obstmct  the  elections,  and 
the  unprecedented  use  of  the  veto  to  maintain  its  corrupt  and  despotic 
power,  insults  the  people  and  imperils  their  institutions.     Wre  exe- 
crate the  course  of  this  administration  in  making  places  in  the  civil 
service  a  reward  for  political  crime,  and  demand  a  reform,  by  statute, 
which  shall  make  it  forever  impossible  for  a  defeated  candidate  to 
bribe  his  way  to  the  seat  of  a  usurper  by  billeting  villains  upon  the 
people. 

6.  The  great  fraud  of  1876-7,  by  which,  upon  a  false  count  of  the 


DOCUMENTARY   HISTORY   OF   THE   EPOCH.  407 

electoral  votes  of  two  States,  the  candidate  defeated  at  the  polls  was 
declared  to  be  President,  and,  for  the  first  time  in  American  history, 
the  will  of  the  people  was  set  aside  under  a  threat  of  military  violence, 
struck  a  deadly  blow  at  our  system  of  representative  government. 
The  Democratic  party,  to  preserve  the  country  from  the  horrors  of  a 
civil  war,  submitted  for  the  time,  in  the  firm  and  patriotic  belief  that 
the  people  would  punish  the  crime  in  1880.  This  issue  precedes  and 
dwarfs  every  other.  It  imposes  a  more  sacred  duty  upon  the  people 
of  the  Union  than  ever  addressed  the  consciences  of  a  nation  of  free 
men. 

7.  The  resolution  of  Samuel  J.  Tilden,  not  again  to  be  a  candidate 
for  the  exalted  place  to  which  he  was  elected  by  a  majority  of  his 
countrymen,  and  from  which  he  was  excluded  by  the  leaders  of  the 
Kepublican  part}-,  is  received  by  the  Democrats  of  the  United  States 
with  deep  sensibility;  and  they  declare  their  confidence  in  his  wis- 
dom, patriotism,  and  integrity  unshaken  by  the  assaults  of  the  com- 
mon enemy;  and  they  further  assure  him  that  he  is  followed  into  the 
retirement  he  has  chosen  for  himself  by  the  sympathy  and  respect  of 
his  fellow-citizens,  who  regard  him  a«  one  who,  by  elevating  the 
standard  of  the  public  morality,  and  adorning  and  purifying  the  pub- 
lic service,  merits  the  lasting  gratitude  of  his  country  and  his  party 

8.  Free  ships,  and  a  living  chance  for  American  commerce  upon  the 
seas;  and  on  the  land  no  discrimination  in  favor  of  transportation 
lines,  corporations,  or  monopolies. 

9.  Amendments  of  the  Burlingame  treaty;  no  more  Chinese  immi- 
gration, except  for  travel,  education,  and  foreign  commerce,  and, 
therein,  carefully  guarded. 

10.  Public  money  and  public  credit  for  public  purposes  solely,  and 
public  land  for  actual  settlers. 

11.  The  Democratic  party  is  the  friend  of  labor  and  the  laboring 
man,  and  pledges  itself  to  protect  him  alike  against  the  cormorants 
and  the  commune. 

12.  We  congratulate  the  country  upon  the  honesty  and  thrift  of  a 
Democratic  Congress,  which  has  reduced  the  public  expenditure  f  10,- 
000,000  a  year;  upon  the  continuation  of  prosperity  at  home  and  the 
national  honor  abroad;  and,  above  all,  upon  the  promise  of  such  a 
change  in  the  administration  of  the  Government  as  shall  insure  a 
genuine   and    lasting   reform   in   every   department   of   the   public 
service, 


THE  PERIOD  OF  DEFEAT  AND  RECOVERY. 

I. 

THE  REPUBLICAN  FEUDS  OF  1881-2. 

Appointment  of  Collector  Robertson — Resignation  of  Senators  Conk- 
ling  and  Platt — Long  Contest  in  the  New  York  Legislature — The 
Senators  Defeated — Assassination  of  President  Garfleld — A  Stal- 
wart of  the  Stalwarts — Comments  of  the  Newspapers — Repub- 
lican Feud  in  Pennsylvania — Revolt  of  1882 — Cleveland  and  Fol- 
ger  Contest  in  New  York — Discontent  in  Other  States — Causes  of 
Republican  Reverses — Mahone  Movement  in  Virginia — Presi- 
dent Arthurs  Cabinet — A  Successful  Administration. 

ENERAL  GARFIELD  was  scarcely  inaugurated  when  the 
feud  broke  out  to  which  the  Republican  National  Conven- 
tion of  1880  was  the  prelude.  The  new  Cabinet  was  not 
one  to  give  satisfaction  to  the  wing  of  the  party  that  had 
supported  General  Grant  at  Chicago.  The  appointment  of  Mr.  Elaine 
as  Secretary  of  State  could  not  be  openly  resented  by  Mr.  Conkling 
when  it  was  made,  but  a  collision  between  the  two  great  party  chiefs 
was  inevitable  sooner  or  later.  It  came  sooner  than  was  expected. 
If  not  actually  sought,  causes  of  offense  were  not  avoided  by  either. 
The  President  at  the  outset  was  not  indisposed  to  oblige  Mr.  Conk- 
ling  and  his  friends  in  the  matter  of  filling  the  Federal  offices  in  New 
York.  A  number  of  appointments  were  made  that  were  acceptable  to 
the  New  York  Senators  and  the  Vice-President.  There  was,  or  it 
was  claimed  that  there  was,  a  tacit  understanding  that  the  one  place 
that  was  of  greater  political  importance  than  all  the  others  together 
should  not  be  filled  in  the  immediate  future.  This  was  the  office  of 
Collector  of  the  Port  at  New  York.  General  Edward  A.  Merritt,  the 
Collector,  had  been  appointed  by  President  Hayes  as  the  successor  of 
General  Arthur.  Collector  Merritt  was  not  active  in  using  the  Fed- 
eral patronage,  which  was  very  great,  against  the  existing  Repub- 
lican organization  in  New  York  City,  and  for  this  reason  the  domi- 
nant faction  was  satisfied  with  his  retention.  But  before  the  nomi- 
nations already  made  were  confirmed  by  the  Senate  the  President 
was  induced  to  nominate  General  Merritt  as  Consul-General  at  Lon- 
don, and  to  name  William  II.  Robertson,  of  Westchester  County,  for 
Collector  of  the  Port  at  New  York.  No  action  could  have  been  more 


THE   REPUBLICAN    FEUDS   OF   1881-2. 


409 


offensive  to  Senator  Conkling,  and  the  Conkling  faction  in  New  York 
City  and  State,  and  it  was  generally  believed  at  the  time  that  it  was 
intended  as  a  challenge  of  Mr.  Conkling's  supremacy  in  New  York 
politics. 

Judge  Robertson  was  a  man  of  high  character  and  recognized  abil- 
ity. He  had  served  in  the  Senate  of  New  York  and  as  the  representa- 
tive from  the  Westchester  District  in  the  40th  Congress.  As  a 
politician  he  was  impatient  of  the  dictation  of  party  chiefs,  and  he 
had  the  courage  to  oppose  Mr.  Conkling's  arbitrary  methods  of  party 
discipline.  He  was  the  leader  of  the  anti-Grant  element  in  the  New 
York  delegation  at  Chicago,  and  had  been  the  first  and  most  active 
of  the  New  York  delegates  in 
disavowing  and  disregarding 
the  unit  rule  in  the  Conven- 
tion. During  the  two  days' 
balloting  he  led  the  Elaine 
delegates  in  open  hostility  to 
Grant,  and  in  equally  open  de- 
fiance of  Conkling,  support- 
ing Elaine  while  there  was  a 
possibility  of  his  nomination 
and  afterward  transferring 
Elaine's  strength  to  Garfield. 
Under  these  circumstances 
his  nomination  for  the  Collec- 
torship  was  notice  to  the  sen- 
ior Senator  from  New  York 
that  Mr.  Elaine's  friends 
would  insist  upon  a  share  in 
the  management  of  the  party 
in  the  Empire  State.  To 

meet  this  situation  Mr.  Conkling  sought  to  have  his  friends 
confirmed  by  the  Senate  while  the  confirmation  of  Robert- 
son wras  held  in  abeyance.  This  course  was  resented  by  the  Presi- 
dent, who  withdrew  all  the  other  nominations,  thus  making  a  direct 
issue  of  Judge  Robertson's  confirmation.  Vice-President  Arthur  and 
Senators  Conkling  and  Platt  remonstrated  against  this  action  in  a 
letter  to  the  President,  but  the  remonstrance  went  unheeded.  Sen- 
ator Conkling  then  sought  to  defeat  Robertson  by  urging  the  "  cour- 
tesy of  the  Senate  "  against  his  confirmation.  A  bitter  contest  ensued, 
in  which  the  friends  of  the  administration  in  the  Senate  took  sides 
against  the  Senators  from  New  York.  The  nomination  was  made 
March  23, 1881,  and  was  confirmed  on  the  10th  of  May. 


WM.    11      JKOBERTSON. 


410  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

The  confirmation  of  Judge  Robertson  was  immediately  followed 
by  the  resignations  of  the  New  York  Senators.  These  resignations 
caused  great  excitement  throughout  the  country,  and  especially  in 
New  York,  where  the  Legislature  was  still  in  session.  They  came  as 
a  surprise  to  Mr.  Conkling's  political  friends,  as  well  as  the  friends 
of  Mr.  Elaine  and  the  administration.  Even  Vice-President  Arthur 
was  not  consulted,  and  only  learned  of  the  resignations  in  the  perform- 
ance of  his  official  duty  as  presiding  officer  of  the  Senate.  When  the 
letters  of  resignation  reached  Governor  Cornell,  at  Albany,  he  sought 
to  have  them  reconsidered  and  withdrawn,  but  without  effect.  Mr. 
Conkling  was  obdurate,  and  insisted  upon  a  "  vindication  "  for  him- 
self and  Senator  Platt.  Then  came  the  long  contest  in  the  Legislature 
over  the  election  of  the  successors  of  the  two  Senators.  The  Demo- 
crats nominated  Francis  Kernan  for  the  long  term  and  John  C.  Jacobs 
for  the  short  term.  The  Republicans  who  resented  the  course  pursued 
by  Conkling  and  Platt  made  no  nominations,  but,  after  a  few  ballots, 
concentrated  upon  William  A.  Wheeler  as  the  successor  of  Mr.  Conk- 
ling, and  Chauncey  M.  Depew  as  the  successor  of  Mr.  Platt.  On  the 
first  ballot  for  the  short  term,  Mr.  Conkling  had  35  votes,  and  Mr.  Platt 
started  with  29  for  the  long  term,  to  which  he  had  been  elected  only 
a  few  months  before.  Mr.  Wheeler  started  with  22  votes,  to  15  for 
Sherman  S.  Rogers,  10  for  Alonzo  B.  Cornell,  3  each  for  Theodore 
M.  Pomeroy,  Richard  Crowley,  Henry  E.  Tremaine,  and  Reuben  E. 
Fenton,  and  2  each  for  Charles  J.  Folger,  William  M.  Evarts,  and 
Thomas  G.  Alvord.  Wheeler  showed  no  decided  gain  until  the  six- 
teenth ballot,  when  he  received  38  votes.  On  the  twenty-third  ballot 
he  reached  his  high-water  mark,  50  votes,  79  being  necessary  to  a 
choice.  As  wras  the  case  with  Mr.  Conkling,  Mr.  Platt  received  no 
increase  of  votes  after  the  first  ballot.  Mr.  Depew  started  with  25 
votes,  to  11  for  Alonzo  B.  Cornell,  8  each  for  Elbridge  G.  Lapham  and 
Warner  Miller,  5  for  Charles  J.  Folger,  4  for  Richard  Crowley,  3  each 
for  William  M.  Evarts  and  Hamilton  Ward,  2  each  for  James  W. 
Wadsworth,  Silas  B.  Dutcher,  and  Noah  Davis,  and  1  each  for  Henry 
E.  Tremaine  and  Sherman  S.  Rogers.  Mr.  Depew's  highest  vote  was 
55  on  the  fourteenth  ballot,  76  being  necessary  to  a  choice.  On 
July  8,  after  forty-one  ballots  had  been  taken,  a  caucus  of  the  Re- 
publican members  of  the  Legislature  was  called,  at  which  sixty-seven 
members  were  present.  Six  ballots  wrere  taken  for  a  candidate  to 
succeed  Mr.  Platt,  on  the  last  of  which  WTarner  Miller  received  65 
votes.  This  led  to  Mr.  Miller's  election  on  the  forty-eighth  ballot, 
when  he  received  76  votes.  In  the  caucus  Elbridge  G.  Lapham  was 
nominated  to  succeed  Mr.  Conkling,  receiving  34  out  of  66  votes.  This 
nomination  gave  Mr.  Lapham  67  votes  on  the  forty-second  ballot,  75 


THE   REPUBLICAN   FEUDS   OF   1881-2.  411 

being  necessary  to  a  choice.  The  balloting  continued  without 
result  until  the  fifty-fifth  ballot,  thus  showing  that  Mr.  Lapham  could 
not  be  elected  while  Mr.  Conkling  continued  to  be  a  candidate.  Fi- 
nally a  caucus  was  agreed  to,  which  met  on  July  22,  and  nominated 
Mr.  Lapham,  who  received  61  votes  to  28  for  Mr.  Conkling.  Thus  the 
contest  that  had  begun  on  May  31  was  brought  to  a  close  by  the 
election  of  Elbridge  G.  Lapham.  This  defeat  of  Mr.  Conkling  was 
the  end  of  a  great  career  in  the  United  States  Senate,  but  Mr.  Platt 
lived  to  regain  the  confidence  of  the  Republican  party  of  New  York, 
and  now  fills  the  place  in  the  Senate  from  which  he  so  precipitately 
retired  at  the  beginning  of  his  Senatorial  life. 

While  these  factional  fights  over  the  Senatorship  were  in  progress 
at  Albany  an  event  occurred  at  Washington  that  somehow  became 
associated  in  the  public  mind  with  the  great  feud  that  had  occurred 
in  the  Republican  party.  At  twenty-two  minutes  past  nine  o'clock, 
on  the  morning  of  July  2,  two  shots  in  rapid  succession  were  fired 
in  the  waiting-room  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  station  in  Sixth 
Street,  near  Pennsylvania  Avenue.  Almost  at  the  same  instant  Sec- 
retary Blaine  rushed  from  the  room  and  called  for  an  officer.  The 
President  had  been  shot  down  by  an  assassin  while  on  his  way 
through  the  station  to  take  a  train.  The  murderer  was  Charles  Gui- 
teau,  a  disappointed  office-seeker,  who  had  gone  to  the  station  in  ad- 
vance of  the  Presidential  party  with  the  intention  of  shooting  the 
President.  On  his  person,  after  his  arrest,  was  found  a  letter  that  led 
many  people  to  the  hasty  conclusion  that  the  crime  had  some  political 
significance.  "  The  President's  tragic  death  \vas  a  sad  necessity," 
this  letter  said,  "  but  it  will  unite  the  Republican  party  and  save  the 
Republic.  Life  is  a  flimsy  dream,  and  it  matters  little  when  one  goes; 
a  human  life  is  of  small  value.  During  the  war  thousands  of  brave 
boys  went  down  without  a  tear.  I  presume  the  President  was  a 
Christian,  and  that  he  will  be  happier  in  Paradise  than  here.  It  will 
be  no  worse  for  Mrs.  Garfield,  dear  soul,  to  part  with  her  husband 
this  way  than  by  natural  death.  He  is  liable  to  go  at  any  time,  any- 
way. I  had  no  ill  will  toward  the  President.  His  death  was  a 
political  necessity.  I  am  a  lawyer,  a  theologian,  and  a  politician.  I 
am  a  Stalwart  of  the  Stalwarts.  I  was  with  General  Grant  and  the 
rest  of  our  men  in  New  York  during  the  canvass.  I  have  some  papers 
for  the  press,  which  I  shall  leave  with  Byron  Andrews  and  his  com- 
pany, journalists,  at  No.  1420  New  York  Avenue,  where  all  the  re- 
porters can  see  them.  I  am  now  going  to  the  jail."  It  was  addressed 
"  To  the  W7hite  House,"  and  signed  "  Charles  Guiteau."  Guiteau's 
declaration  that  he  was  a  Stalwart  of  the  Stalwarts  seemed,  to  imag- 
inative persons,  to  point  to  some  connection  between  the  assassin  and 


412  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

the  President's  political  opponents  in  the  party  in  New  York.  Stal- 
warts was  the  name  assumed  by  the  Conkling  wing  of  the  party,  the 
other  faction  being  contemptuously  called  "  Half-breeds."  The  use 
of  nicknames  had  been  a  practice  in  New  York  politics  since  the  be- 
ginning of  the  century.  The  followers  of  Aaron  Burr  were  called 
"  Quids,"  or  "  Tertium  Quids,"  the  third  party  men.  Other  similar 
designations  have  been  "  Hunkers  "  and  "  Barnburners,"  "  Locofo- 
cos,"  "  Mugwumps,"  and  "  Goo-Goos." 

It  was  natural,  perhaps,  that  Guiteau's  claim  that  he  was  a  "  Stal- 
wart "  among  the  "  Stalwarts "  should  lead  some  of  the  "  Half- 
breeds  "  to  impute  his  crime  to  the  faction  with  which  he  sought  to 
identify  himself,  and  some  of  the  newspapers  in  New  York  treated 
the  event  as  "  Faction's  latest  crime."  "  For  though  the  murderer 
was  obviously  of  unsound  mind,"  said  the  Times,  "  it  is  impossible  to 
ignore  the  causes  which  led  immediately  to  this  act;  which  directed 
his  ill-regulated  will  to  final  aim.  He  was  a  disappointed  office- 
seeker,  and  he  linked  the  bitterness  of  his  personal  disappointment 
with  the  passionate  animosity  of  a  faction.  His  resentment  was  in- 
flamed and  intensified  by  the  assaults  upon  the  President  which  have 
been  common  in  too  many  circles  for  the  past  few  months.  Certainly, 
we  are  far  from  holding  any  party  or  any  section  of  a  party  respon- 
sible for  this  murderous  act,  but  we  believe  it  our  duty  to  point  out 
that  the  act  wras  an  exaggerated  expression  of  a  sentiment  of  narrow 
and  bitter  hatred  which  has  been  only  too  freely  indulged.  It  is  not 
too  much  to  say,  in  the  first  place,  that  if  Mr.  Garfield  had  not  been 
the  chief  of  a  service  in  which  offices  are  held  out  as  prizes  to  men 
of  much  the  same  merit  and  much  the  same  career  as  this  murderer, 
he  would  not  have  been  exposed  to  this  attack."  "  President  Garfield 
has  been  shot  down,"  the  Tribune  said,  "  not  by  a  political  faction, 
but  by  the  spirit  which  a  political  faction  has  begotten  and  nursed. 
But  for  that  spirit,  there  was  hardly  a  man  in  this  country  who 
seemed  at  sunrise  yesterday  more  safe  from  murderous  assault. 
.  .  It  does  not  appear  that  the  assassin  of  yesterday  had  ever  been 
thought  a  lunatic  by  any  associate  or  acquaintance,  until  the  deadly 
shots  were  fired.  Was  he  i  crazed  by  political  excitement,'  then,  as 
many  say?  At  what  point,  if  ever,  did  the  madness  of  faction  become 
the  madness  of  irresponsibility?  Do  the  leaders  of  faction  ever  in- 
tend all  the  mischief  which  grows  from  the  wild  and  desperate  spirit 
which  they  create,  feed,  and  stimulate,  week  after  week?  Is  it  not 
their  constant  crime  against  self-government  that,  by  kindling  such  a 
spirit,  they  send  weak  or  reckless  men  beyond  the  bounds  of  right  or 
reason?  This  assassin,  it  seems,  was  not  ignorant  that  he  was  trying 
to  kill  one  President  and  make  another.  His  language  and  letters 


THE   REPUBLICAN    FEUDS   OF   1881-2.  413 

prove  that  be  knew  what  he  was  doing  only  too  well.  As  '  a  Stalwart 
of  the  Stalwarts,'  his  passion  wras  intense  enough  to  do  the  thing 
which  other  reckless  men  had  wished  were  done."  Outside  of  New 
York  the  imputations  were  even  more  direct.  "  The  Stalwarts," 
said  the  Baltimore  American,  "  have  indeed  destroyed  the  President  at 
last.  What  the  ultimate  consequences  of  this  coup  d'etat  will  be  it  is 
impossible  at  this  moment  to  predict."  "  Guiteau  is  a  miserable 
ne'er-do-well,"  exclaimed  the  Springfield  Republican,  "  who  shares  the 
common  feeling  that  all  the  offices  are  in  the  dispensation  of  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  and  that  he  has  a  claim  on  that  functionary 
for  patronage.  He  is  in  sympathy  with  Arthur  and  Conkling  in  the 
struggle  over  the  New  York  Custom  House.  His  wits  have  become 
only  a  degree  more  disordered  than  those  of  Conkling  himself,  and, 
being  a  much  wreaker  and  feebler  man,  his  vengeance  has  taken  the 
direct  and  vulgar  form  of  a  pistol  shot,  rather  than  the  more  re- 
fined form  of  resigning  the  seats  of  the  Republican  majority  in  the 
United  States  Senate  and  demanding  a  vindication  from  the  State  of 
New  York."  "  While  no  sane  man,"  said  the  Chicago  Tribune,  "  will 
admit  a  suspicion  that  this  attempted  assassination  has  any  connec- 
tion with  the  New  York  case,  still  on  the  theory  that  this  assassin 
was  deranged  in  his  mind,  and  taking  his  owrn  letters  as  indicating 
the  direction  of  his  insanity,  no  one  will  question  that  had  not  the 
factious  controversy  taken  place  this  attempted  murder  would  not 
have  suggested  itself  to  this  man  Guiteau."  Such  outcries  as  these 
only  tended  to  embitter  faction,  and  they  helped  to  extend  a  feud 
that  concerned  only  the  New  York  offices  to  nearly  every  State  in  the 
Union. 

It  is  not  true,  however,  that  the  great  feud  of  1881,  greatly  promoted 
as  it  was  by  the  two  senatorial  contests  in  New  York,  had  its  origin 
in  Mr.  Conkling's  quarrel  with  the  Administration.  In  Pennsylvania 
there  had  been  a  faction  fight  between  the  "  Regulars  "  and  the  "  In- 
dependents," over  the  election  of  a  Senator  of  the  United  States  to 
succeed  William  A.  WTallace,  that  was  not  less  bitter  than  the  con- 
test between  the  "  Stalwarts  "  and  the  "  Half-breeds  "  in  New  York. 
When  the  Pennsylvania  Legislature  met  in  January,  1881,  Henry  W. 
Oliver,  Jr.,  received  the  nomination  of  the  Republican  caucus  for 
United  States  Senator.  Galusha  A.  Grow,  the  vigorous  Republican 
leader  of  the  early  days  of  the  party,  desired  to  become  a  candidate, 
but  his  friends,  finding  themselves  a  minority,  refused  to  enter  the 
caucus.  The  result  was  that  Oliver  was  supported  by  the  "  Regu- 
lars," while  Grow  became  the  candidate  of  the  "  Independents."  An 
election  consequently  became  impossible.  While  the  "  deadlock  " 
lasted  both  the  candidates  withdrew,  with  a  view  of  breaking  it,  but 


414 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 


V 


as  the  "  Kegulars  "  substituted  General  James  A.  Beaver  for  Mr.  Oliv- 
er, the  "  Independents  "  refused  to  accept  him,  General  Beaver  having 
been  the  Grant  leader  of  the  Pennsylvania  delegation  at  Chicago,  in 
1880.  After  many  fruitless  efforts  at  compromise  between  the  lead- 
ers on  both  sides,  the  two  factions  agreed  to  conference  committees  to 
select  a  candidate  by  a  three-fourths  vote.  These  committees  found 
it  difficult  to  agree,  but  finally  John  I.  Mitchell,  Representative  in 
Congress  from  the  Sixteenth  District,  was  accepted,  and  after  being 
nominated  in  a  full  caucus,  elected.  This  settlement,  however,  failed 
to  compose  the  differences  in  the  party,  and  the  effects  of  the  feud 
were  felt  in  the  State  election  in  the  autumn  of  1881,  and  culminated 

in  open  revolt  in  the  election  for  Gov- 
ernor in  1882. 

The  accession  of  President  Arthur 
upon  the  death  of  President  Gar- 
field,  September  19,  1881,  was  not  a 
factor  in  the  Pennsylvania  election 
of  that  year.  In  1882,  when  the  "  In- 
dependents "  nominated  John  Stew- 
art for  Governor  in  opposition  to 
General  James  A.  Beaver,  the  candi- 
date of  the  "  Kegulars,"  dissatisfac- 
tion with  Arthur's  Administration 
was  very  pronounced.  The  Republi- 
cans  who  nominated  Stewart  de- 
clared it  to  be  their  purpose  to  take 
up  the  work  that  fell  when  Garfield 
fell.  They  professed  to  have  found 
in  Garfield's  election  "the  triumph 
of  true  reform  in  the  Civil  Service, 
and  of  an  enlarged  liberty  of  action 

for  the  masses  of  the  Republican  party  in  the  nomination  of  their 
candidates  and  in  the  conduct  of  their  party  affairs,"  and  deplored 
the  overwhelming  evidence  presented  in  Pennsylvania  "that  the  ca- 
lamity of  his  assassination  has  been  followed  by  the  overthrow 
of  these  reforms  in  the  hands  of  his  successor."  These  allegations 
were  without  any  foundation  in  fact.  It  was  the  nomination  of  Gen- 
eral Beaver,  the  supremacy  of  "  the  machine,"  that  the  independ- 
ent platform  called  "Boss  Rule,"  that  caused  the  revolt  of  1882. 
As  the  differences  could  not  be,  or  at  least  were  not  recon- 
ciled, the  election  of  Robert  E.  Pattison,  the  Democratic  candidate, 
was  the  result.  This  result  was  intended  as  a  drastic  measure  of  dis- 
cipline to  compel  the  "  Regulars  "  to  recognize  the  independent  ele- 


GALUSHA    A.   GROW. 


THE   REPUBLICAN   FEUDS   OF   1881-2.  415 

ment  in  the  party.  The  faction  in  itself  was  not  new,  either  in  1882, 
when  it  defeated  General  Beaver  for  Governor,  or  in  1881,  when  it 
prevented  the  election  of  Mr.  Oliver  as  United  States  Senator.  There 
had  been  two  Republican  factions  in  Pennsylvania  ever  since  the 
birth  of  the  party.  There  are  two  factions  still,  and  open  revolt  in 
any  year  is  only  a  question  of  opportunity  to  arouse  opposition  to 
the  dominating  forces. 

In  New  York  the  influences  and  the  results  in  1882  were  almost 
identical  with  those  in  Pennsylvania.  The  Democrats  in  their  State 
Convention  discarded  their  party  favorites  and  nominated  an  entirely 
new  man  for  Governor.  The  candidate  of  Tammany  Hall  was  Eos- 
well  P.  Flower.  Hisprincipal  opponent  was  General  Henry  W.  Slocum. 
On  the  third  ballot  Tammany  deserted  Flower  and  threw  the  full 
strength  of  that  powerful  organization  for  Grover  Cleveland.  Cleve- 
land had  been  Sheriff  of  Erie  County,  and  was  at  the  time  Mayor  of 
his  city.  He  had  had  no  legislative  experience,  and  was  never  promi- 
nent in  the  politics  of  the  State.  He  was,  however,  a  man  of  local  re- 
pute as  an  independent  and  efficient  executive  in  the  office  he  then 
held.  His  nomination  was  due  to  the  fact  that  he  was  free  from  the 
entanglements  and  antagonisms  in  the  politics  of  the  State,  and  es- 
pecially in  the  City  of  New  York.  The  Republican  candidate  was 
Charles  J.  Folger,  then  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  as  the  successor  of 
Mr.  Windom  in  the  Cabinet  of  President  Arthur.  He  was  a  man  of 
great  ability  and  large  experience.  He  had  served  in  the  State  Sen- 
ate, and  had  been  Chief  Justice  of  the  Court  of  Appeals.  A  better 
nomination  apparently  was  impossible.  But  there  were  many  ele- 
ments of  discontent.  The  principal  cause  of  dissatisfaction  wras  the 
defeat  of  Governor  Cornell  in  the  State  Convention  by  the  use  of  a 
forged  telegram.  The  "  Half-breeds "  opposed  Folger  on  the  as- 
sumption that  he  was  the  candidate  of  the  National  Administration. 
Although  there  was  no  independent  nomination,  as  in  Pennsylvania, 
fully  two  hundred  thousand  Republicans  refrained  from  voting,  and 
the  result  was  Mr.  Cleveland's  election  by  a  majority  of  192,854.  The 
defection  was  attributed  by  the  "  Stalwarts  "  to  the  influence  of  Mr. 
Blaine,  and  this  imputation  cost  him  the  Electoral  vote  of  the  State  in 
the  Presidential  election  of  1884. 

Political  discontent  was  manifest  in  other  States  besides  Pennsyl- 
vania and  New  York,  in  1882.  There  were  Republican  defections  in 
Massachusetts,  Connecticut,  Ohio,  Michigan,  Indiana,  Iowa,  Nebras- 
ka, Kansas,  Colorado,  and  California.  The  ground  of  opposition  in 
nearly  all  these  States  was  the  alleged  necessity  of  opposing  "  Boss 
Rule."  This  opprobrious  term  had  been  used  by  the  Republicans  of 
New  York  in  opposing  the  "  Tweed  Ring,"  but  it  was  first  applied  to 


416  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

Republican  politics  by  Wayne  McVeagh  at  Chicago  in  1880,  when 
he  used  it  in  street  speeches  against  the  nomination  of  General  Grant. 
Afterward  every  political  leader  who  possessed  actual  influence  in 
State  or  municipal  politics,  was  denounced  as  a  "  boss,"  and  "  Down 
with  Boss  Rule!"  became  the  cry  of  dissatisfied  Republicans  in  all 
parts  of  the  country.  The  phrase  only  served  to  express  the  feeling 
of  discontent  with  the  party  within  the  party,  that  was  resolved  upon 
rebuking  the  party  leadership  by  voting  with  the  Democrats,  or  not 
voting  at  all.  In  Massachusetts  General  Benjamin  F.  Butler  was  elected 
Governor,  as  a  Democrat,  by  a  majority  relatively  greater  than  that 
of  Cleveland  over  Folger  in  New  York,  because  that  State,  instead  of 
having  too  little  had  had  too  much  reform.  The  discontent  in  Massa- 
chusetts was  not  in  harmony  writh  the  causes  of  dissatisfaction  and 
revolt  in  the  other  States.  It  was  a  plain  case  of  reaction.  In  Ohio 
the  liquor  question  obtruded  itself  into  the  politics  of  the  State.  A 
prohibitory  constitutional  amendment  had  been  adopted,  in  itself  de- 
fective, and  as  no  legislation  had  been  enacted  to  enforce  it,  those 
who  resisted  it  began  to  sell  as  though  the  right  were  natural,  and 
in  this  way  became  strong  enough  to  prevent  taxation  or  license.  The 
Legislature  of  1882,  the  majority  being  controlled  by  the  Kepublicans, 
attempted  to  pass  the  Pond  liquor  tax  act.  The  liquor  interests  or- 
ganized, secured  control  of  the  Democratic  State  Convention,  nomi- 
nated a  ticket  pledged  to  their  interests,  made  a  platform  which 
pointed  to  unrestricted  sale,  and  by  active  work  and  the  free  use  of 
money,  carried  the  election  and  reversed  the  usual  majority.  In  Iowa 
and  Kansas,  as  well  as  in  Ohio,  the  liquor  question  was  the  cause  of 
Republican  reverses.  Still  other  causes  were  operative  in  the  other 
States.  The  reverses  resulting  from  a  feeling  of  discontent,  originat- 
ing in  so  many  diverse  causes,  wrere  not  merely  a  continuation  of  the 
effects  of  the  reaction  that  began  with  the  panic  of  1873,  but  the  signs 
that  pointed  to  a  Period  of  Defeat. 

The  Republicans  were  able  to  maintain  their  strength  unimpaired 
in  a  few  States — New  Hampshire,  Vermont,  Rhode  Island,  Illinois, 
Wisconsin,  and  Minnesota.  In  the  South  there  were  signs  of  re- 
covery. There  was  an  increase  of  Republican  strength  in  North  Car- 
olina and  Tennessee,  and  Congressmen  were  gained  in  Mississippi  and 
Louisiana.  In  Virginia  the  situation  was  greatly  improved,  Ma- 
hone's  Republican  Readjuster  ticket  carrying  the  State  by  a  majority 
of  10,000,  thus  securing  the  election  of  a  Congressman-at-large  and  a 
United  States  Senator. 

The  Mahone  movement  in  Virginia  began  in  1876.  General  Will- 
iam Mahone,  its  originator,  was  a  Confederate  officer  of  distinction 
and  a  man  of  great  energy  in  business  as  well  as  in  politics.  What  he 


THE   REPUBLICAN    FEUDS   OF   1881-2.  417 

sought  was  a  readjustment  of  the  Virginia  debt,  so  that  West  Virginia 
should  bear  a  fair  proportion  of  the  indebtedness  of  the  old  State  of 
Virginia.  His  enemies  asserted  that  his  object  was  repudiation. 
This  charge  Mahone  denied,  asserting  that  the  Bourbons,  as  he 
called  the  Democratic  leaders,  were  actually  repudiating  it  by  making 
no  provisions  for  its  payment,  either  in  appropriations  or  the  levying 
of  taxes  needed  for  the  purpose.  At  the  time  the  Republicans  were 
in  a  helpless  minority  in  Virginia.  In  order  to  obtain  support  for  his 
movement,  General  Mahone  publicly  invited  an  alliance  by  the  adop- 
tion of  a  platform  that  advocated  free  schools  for  the  blacks,  and  a 
full  enforcement  of  the  National  laws  touching  their  civil  rights.  As 
a  result  of  the  movement,  the  Legislature  was  won,  and  Mahone  was 
elected  to  the  United  States  Senate  in  1880.  It  was  claimed  that  he 
had  been  chosen  as  a  Democrat,  and  he  gave  great  offense  to  the 
Southern  Democracy  when  he  acted  with  the  Republicans.  Mahone 
was  bitterly  assailed  by  Senator  Hill,  of  Georgia,  for  intending  to 
vote  with  the  Republicans  in  the  organization  of  the  Senate  in  1881, 
and  the  Readjuster  Senator  from  Virginia  replied  with  equal  bitter- 
ness. "  The  gentleman  may  not  be  advised,"  Mahone  said,  "  that  the 
Legislature  that  elected  me  did  not  require  that  I  should  state  either 
that  I  was  a  Democrat  or  anything  else.  I  suppose  he  could  not  get 
here  from  Georgia  unless  he  was  to  say  that  he  was  a  Democrat,  any- 
how. I  come  here  without  being  required  to  state  to  my  people 
what  I  am.  They  were  willing  to  trust  me,  sir,  and  I  was  elected  by 
the  people  and  not  by  a  Legislature,  for  it  was  an  issue  in  the  can- 
vass. There  was  no  man  elected  by  the  party  with  which  I  am  iden- 
tified that  did  not  go  to  the  Legislature  instructed  by  the  sovereigns 
to  vote  for  me  for  the  position  I  occupy  on  this  floor.  It  required  no 
oath  of  allegiance  blindly  given  to  stand  by  your  Democracy,  such 
as  it  is,  that  makes  a  platform  and  practices  another  thing."  A  re- 
markable scene  of  disorder  in  the  Senate  marked  the  colloquy  between 
Hill  and  Mahone.  A  number  of  Republican  Senators,  including  Mr. 
Hoar  and  General  Logan,  defended  the  Virginian,  and  General  Ma- 
hone afterward  made  a  very  elaborate  reply  to  Hill,  in  which  he 
gave  a  complete  history  of  the  Readjuster  movement  in  Virginia,  and 
justified  his  alliance  writh  the  Republicans.  It  was  hoped  the  anti- 
Bourbon  movement,  which  had  taken  deep  root  in  Virginia,  would 
be  extended  to  the  other  Southern  States,  but  .this  hope  was  disap- 
pointed because  of  the  great  Republican  feud  of  1881-2  and  its  con- 
sequent disasters. 

In  all  these  conflicts  men  professed  to  see  the  hand  of  Mr.  Blaine. 
There  was  no  actual  proof  that  he  had  any  share  in  promoting  the  dis- 
cords of  1882,  but  the  men  who  were  active  in  the  defection  from  Pol- 


418  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

ger  in  New  York,  and  in  conducting  the  revolt  in  Pennsylvania,  were 
almost  without  exception  his  friends,  and  enemies  of  the  Administra- 
tion. President  Arthur  assumed  the  great  office  that  the  assassin's 
bullet  had  made  possible  for  him  under  circumstances  of  peculiar  dif- 
ficulty. His  title  to  the  Presidency  was  perfect,  but  many  of  the 
leading  men  in  the  party  were  disposed  to  stand  aloof,  and  to  treat 
the  new  Administration  as  one  not  to  be  trusted.  President  Arthur 
met  the  emergency  with  dignified  modesty  and  rare  tact  and  discre- 
tion. His  first  act  was  to  ask  the  Cabinet  appointed  by  his  predeces- 
sor to  remain  in  office.  All  except  Wayne  McVeagh,  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, the  Attorney-General,  consented  to  retain  their  places  for  the 
time  being.  McVeagh's  retirement  was  immediate,  a  precipitancy 
that  only  needs  to  be  described  as  unnecessary.  His  successor  Ben- 
jamin Harris  Brewster,  was  not  appointed  until  January  2,  1882. 
Mr.  Windom,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  was  elected  to  the  United 
States  Senate,  and  resigned  from  the  Cabinet  to  accept  the  Senator- 
ship.  Edwin  D.  Morgan,  of  New  York,  was  appointed  and  confirmed 
as  his  successor,  but  declined,  and  Charles  J.  Folger  qualified  No- 
vember 14, 1881.  Mr.  Blaine  retired  a  month  later,  and  was  succeeded 
by  Frederick  T.  Frelinghuysen,  of  New  Jersey,  December  19,  1881. 
Postmaster-General  James  was  succeeded  by  Timothy  O.  Howe,  of 
Wisconsin,  January  2, 1882,  and  William  E.  Chandler,  of  New  Hamp- 
shire, became  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  and  Henry  M.  Teller,  of  Colo- 
rado, Secretary  of  the  Interior,  April  17, 1882.  Robert  T.  Lincoln,  Sec- 
retary of  War,  was  the  only  member  of  President  Garfield's  Cabinet 
who  remained  in  the  Cabinet  of  President  Arthur.  In  all  these 
changes  there  was  nothing  revolutionary.  The  effort  to  make  him  a 
political  pariah,  as  other  Vice-Presidents  who  became  President 
were  made  or  made  themselves,  was  a  failure.  "  How  skillfully  and 
courteously  he  managed  the  grand  trusts  of  the  high  office  to  which  he 
succeeded,  is  now  recognized,"  Mr.  Cox  wrote,  soon  after  his  adminis- 
tration closed.  "  He  was  well  equipped  for  Executive  duties,  as  a 
man  of  education,  of  great  knowledge  of  affairs,  and  as  a  lawyer  and 
a  practical  man  of  business.  He  retired  from  the  office  of  President 
with  the  best  wishes  of  every  one  with  whom  he  came  in  contact. 
He  had  many  severe  trials  connected  with  the  bad  administration  of 
affairs  in  the  Postoffice,  and  other  departments  of  the  government. 
He  also  had  some  stormy  times  with  partisans,  because  he  endeavored 
to  be  just  to  the  country;  but  amid  all  the  distractions  of  his  party 
and  the  State,  he  maintained  that  decorous  dignity  which  becomes  the 
President  of  a  nation  whose  past  has  a  wondrous  lesson,  whose 
present  has  such  a  supreme  duty,  and  whose  future  such  a  radiant 
hope." 


THE   REPUBLICAN   FEUDS   OF   1881-2.  419 

Coming  from  a  Democratic  source,  this  tribute  is  all  the  more  note- 
worthy. Every  word  of  it  was  deserved.  The  place  that  must  be  ac- 
corded to  Arthur's  Administration  in  history  is  in  itself  a  rebuke  of 
the  Republican  feuds  of  which  it  was  the  victim,  not  the  occasion. 
The  towering  personality  of  James  G.  Elaine  blinded  many  Repub- 
licans to  the  merits  of  President  Garfield's  successor,  but  neither  the 
feuds  of  1881-82  nor  his  own  ambition  led  President  Arthur  into  the 
dangerous  pathways  that  had  been  trodden  with  such  heavy  footsteps 
by  John  Tyler,  Millard  Fillmore,  and  Andrew  Johnson. 


II. 

PRESIDENT  ARTHUR'S  ADMINISTRATION. 

Cause  of  Hill's  Attack  oil  Mahone — The  Struggle  for  the  Control  of 
the  Senate — Changes  in  the  Forty-seventh  Congress — Both 
Houses  Republican — Legislation — The  Interstate  Commerce 
Commission — Passage  of  the  Pendleton  Civil-service  Reform  Bill 
— Tariff  of  1883 — Report  of  the  Tariff  Commission — Changes  in 
Tariff  Rates — Efforts  to  Pass  the  Morrison  Tariff  Bill — Changes 
in  the  Forty-eighth  Congress — Waiting  for  the  Presidential  Cam- 
paign— Congress  and  Parties  Adrift. 


HEN  Congress  met  for  the  first  time  under  the  Administra- 
tion of  President  Arthur,  December  5,  1881,  the  House  of 
Representatives  was  again  Republican,  and  the  Senate  was 
a  tie  when  Senator  David  Davis,  Independent,  voted  with 
the  Democrats.  This  explains  the  bitter  assault  on  Senator  William 
Mahone,  of  Virginia,  upon  the  assumption  that  he  had  been  elected  as 
a  Democrat.  "  I  certainly  did  not  say  one  word,"  said  Mr.  Hill,  of 
Georgia,  speaking  of  Senator  Mahone,  "  to  justify  the  gentleman  in 
the  statement  that  I  made  an  assault  upon  him,  unless  he  was  the 
one  man  who  had  been  elected  as  a  Democrat  and  was  not  going  to 
vote  with  his  party.  I  never  saw  that  gentleman  before  the  other 
day.  I  have  not  the  slightest  unkind  feeling  for  him.  I  never  al- 
luded to  him  by  name;  I  never  alluded  to  his  State;  and  I  can  not  un- 
derstand how  the  gentleman  says  that  I  alluded  to  him  except  upon 
the  rule  laid  down  by  the  distinguished  Senator  from  New  York,  that 
a  guilty  conscience  needs  no  accuser.  I  did  not  mention  the  Senator. 
It  had  been  stated  here  by  the  Senator  from  New  York  over  and  over 
that  the  other  side  would  have  a  majority  when  that  side  was  full.  I 
showed  that  it  was  impossible  that  they  should  have  a  majority  unless 
they  could  get  one  Democratic  vote,  with  the  vote  of  the  Vice-Presi- 
dent.  I  did  not  know  who  it  was;  I  asked  who  it  was;  I  begged  to 
know  who  it  was;  and  to  my  utter  astonishment  the  gentleman  from 
Virgina  comes  out  and  says  he  is  the  man.  The  Senator  from  Vir- 
ginia makes  a  very  strange  announcement.  He  charged  me  not  only 
with  attacking  him,  but  with  attacking  the  people  of  Virginia.  Did 
I  say  a  word  of  the  people  of  Virginia?  I  said  that  the  people  of  no 
portion  of  this  country  would  tolerate  treachery.  Was  that  attack- 
ing the  people  of  Virginia?  I  said  that  thirty-eight  men  had  been 
elected  to  this  body  as  Democrats.  Does  the  Senator  deny  that? 
Does  he  say  he  was  elected  here  not  as  a  Democrat?  He  says  he  was 


PRESIDENT   ARTHUR'S   ADMINISTRATION.  421 

not  required  to  declare  that  he  was  a  Democrat,  and  in  the  next  breath 
he  says  he  is  a  truer,  better  Democrat  than  I  am.  .  .  .  Sir,  I 
will  not  defend  Virginia.  She  needs  no  defense.  Virginia  has  given 
to  this  country  and  the  world  and  humanity  some  of  the  brightest 
names  of  history.  She  holds  in  her  bosom  to-day  the  ashes  of  some 
of  the  noblest  and  greatest  men  that  ever  illustrated  the  glories  of 
any  country.  I  say  to  the  Senator  from  Virginia  that  neither  Jeffer- 
son, nor  Madison,  nor  Henry,  nor  Washington,  nor  Leigh,  nor  Tucker, 
nor  any  of  the  long  list  of  great  men  that  Virginia  has  produced  ever 
accepted  a  commission  to  represent  one  party  and  came  here  and  rep- 
resented another."  Mr.  Hill  claimed  that  before  acting  with  the  Re- 
publicans it  was  Mr.  Mahone's  duty  to  resign  his  seat  and  go  back 
to  the  Virginia  Legislature  asking  for  a  re-election.  Such  obliging 
conduct  on  Mahone's  part  would  have  given  the  Democrats  the  or- 
ganization and  control  of  the  Senate. 

The  Mahone  controversy  in  the  Senate  occurred  at  the  special 
session  in  March.  When  the  Senate  again  met  in  special  session, 
October  10,  1881,  the  two  newly-elected  Senators  from  New  York, 
Miller  and  Lapham,  and  Nelson  W.  Aldrich,  the  new  Senator  from 
Rhode  Island,  chosen  to  succeed  General  Burnside,  had  not  yet  quali- 
fied. The  Democrats  in  consequence  took  snap  judgment  upon  the 
Republicans  by  electing  Thomas  F.  Bayard,  of  Delaware,  President 
of  the  Senate,  by  34  votes  to  32  for  Henry  B.  Anthony,  of  Rhode 
Island.  Three  days  later,  when  the  three  new  Senators  had  quali- 
fied, this  action  was  reversed,  and  David  Davis  was  elected,  receiving 
36  votes  to  34  for  Mr.  Bayard. 

The  Senate,  when  the  regular  session  of  Congress  began  in  De- 
cember, showed  many  conspicuous  changes  since  the  adjournment  of 
the  46th  Congress  in  March.  Newton  Booth,  of  California,  had  given 
place  to  John  F.  Miller,  who  was  not  destined  to  the  prominence  of  his 
predecessor.  General  Joseph  R.  Hawley  was  the  new  Republican  Sen- 
ator from  Connecticut.  Benjamin  Harrison  came  from  Indiana  in 
place  of  Joseph  E.  McDonald.  This  was  General  Harrison's  first  ap- 
pearance in  the  political  arena  in  which  he  was  one  of  the  few  con- 
testants who  ever  won  the  prize  of  the  Presidency.  Eugene  Hale,  of 
Maine,  was  the  successor  of  the  venerable  Hannibal  Hamlin,  and  the 
seat  that  James  G.  Blaine  had  resigned  to  become  Secretary  of  State 
under  President  Garfield  was  now  occupied  by  William  P.  Frye. 
Arthur  P.  Gorman  succeeded  William  Pinckney  Whyte  from  Mary- 
land. Omer  D.  Conger,  long  a  prominent  member  of  the  House  from 
Michigan,  succeeded  Henry  P.  Baldwin.  The  olive-hued  Bruce,  the 
last  Republican  Senator  from  Mississippi,  had  accepted  an  adminis- 
trative office,  and  in  his  seat  in  the  Senate  was  James  Z.  George. 


422  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

Charles  H.  Van  Wyck  succeeded  Algernon  S.  Paddock  from  Nebraska. 
James  G.  Fair,  one  of  the  Bonanza  kings  of  Nevada,  succeeded  Will- 
iam Sharon.  General  William  J.  Sewell  entered  the  Senate  from  New 
Jersey.  The  haughty  Conkling  had  thrown  away  in  a  pet  the  proud 
place  he  so  long  held,  and  Thomas  C.  Platt,  the  junior  Senator  from 
New  York,  chosen  as  the  successor  of  Francis  Kernan,  had  followed 
his  chief  into  exile,  after  service  of  less  than  a  fortnight.  Platt's  suc- 
cessor, Warner  Miller,  was  a  man  of  ability,  but  the  appearance  of 
the  commonplace  Laphain  in  Conkling's  seat  was  something  almost 
pathetic.  The  able  Allen  G.  Thurman,  of  Ohio,  made  a  conspicuous 
vacancy  in  the  chamber  he  had  adorned,  notwithstanding  John  Sher- 
man was  his  successor.  General  Garfleld  had  been  elected  to  succeed 
Thurman,  but  became  President  of  the  United  States  on  the  day  he 
would  have  entered  the  Senate.  Angus  Cameron,  of  Wisconsin,  who 
had  been  succeeded  by  Philetus  Sawyer,  filled  the  vacancy  occasioned 
by  the  death  of  Matthew  H.  Carpenter.  The  most  conspicuous  of 
those  whose  names  were  stricken  from  the  rolls  of  the  Senate  forever 
will  be  readily  recognized  as  Conkling,  Thurman,  General  Burnside, 
and  Carpenter.  The  other  new  Senators  were  John  I.  Mitchell,  of 
Pennsylvania;  Nelson  W.  Aldrich,  of  Rhode  Island;  Howell  E.  Jack- 
son, of  Tennessee;  William  Mahone,  of  Virginia,  and  Johnson  N.  Cam- 
den,  of  West  Virginia.  The  Senators  who  entered  on  terms  of  service 
as  their  own  successors  were  Thomas  F.  Bayard,  of  Delaware;  Charles 
W.  Jones,  of  Florida;  Henry  L.  Dawes,  of  Massachusetts;  Samuel  J. 
R.  McMillan,  of  Minnesota;  Francis  M.  Cockrell,  of  Missouri;  Sam  B. 
Maxey,  of  Texas,  and  George  F.  Edmunds,  of  Vermont. 

In  the  47th  Congress  the  House  of  Representatives  contained  150 
Republicans,  131  Democrats,  12  Nationals,  and  2  Readjusters.  J. 
Warren  Keifer,  of  Ohio,  was  elected  Speaker.  Mr.  Keifer  had  been 
a  member  of  the  45th  and  46th  Congresses,  and  had  served  with  dis- 
tinction in  the  Civil  War.  The  new  Republican  members  included 
John  R.  Buck,  of  Connecticut;  Charles  B.  Farwell,  William  Cullen, 
Lewis  E.  Payson,  John  H.  Lewis,  and  Dietrich  C.  Smith  (wrho  suc- 
ceeded Adlai  E.  Stevenson,  afterward  Vice-President),  of  Illinois; 
Stanton  J.  Peele,  Robert  B.  Pierce,  Mark  L.  De  Motte,  and  George 
W.  Steele,  of  Indiana;  Sewell  S.  Farwell,  Marsena  E.  Cutts,  John 
A.  Kasson,  and  William  P.  Hepburn,  of  Iowa;  John  D.  White,  of  Ken- 
tucky; Chester  B.  Darrall,  of  Louisiana;  Nelson  Dingley,  Jr.,  of  Maine; 
Ambrose  A.  Ranney,  Eben  F.  Stone,  and  John  W.  Chandler,  of  Massa- 
chusetts; Henry  W.  Lord,  Edward  S.  Lacey,  George  W.  Webber,  Ol- 
iver S.  Spaulding,  and  John  T.  Rich,  of  Michigan;  John  R.  Lynch,  of 
Mississippi;  Robert  T.  Van  Horn,  of  Missouri;  Ossian  Ray,  of  New 
Hampshire;  John  Hart  Brewer,  John  Hill,  and  Phineas  Jones,  of  New 


PRESIDENT  ARTHUR'S   ADMINISTRATION.  423 

Jersey;  J.  Hyatt  Smith,  Thomas  Cornell,  Abram  X.  Parker,  George 
West,  Ferris  Jacobs,  Jr.,  Charles  R.  Skinner,  and  James  Wadsworth, 
of  New  York;  Orlando  Hubbs,  of  North  Carolina;  Henry  L.  Morey, 
Emaimel  Slmltz,  James  M.  Ritchie,  James  S.  Robinson,  John  B.  Rice, 
Rufus  R.  Dawes,  and  Addison  S.  McClure,  of  Ohio;  Joseph  A.  Scran- 
ton,  Samuel  P.  Barr,  Cornelius  C.  Jadwin,  Robert  J.  C.  Walker,  Jacob 
M.  Campbell,  Samuel  H.  Miller,  and  Lewis  F.  WTatson,  of  Pennsyl- 
vania; Henry  J.  Spooner,  and  Jonathan  Chace,  of  Rhode  Island;  Au- 
gustus H.  Pettibone,  and  William  R.  Moore,  of  Tennessee;  William  W. 
Grout,  of  Vermont;  John  F.  Dezendorf,  of  Virginia,  and  Richard  Guen- 
ther,  of  Wisconsin.  The  most  noteworthy  Democrats  among  the  new 
members  were  General  William  S.  Rosecrans,  of  California;  Andrew 
G.  Curtin,  of  Pennsylvania;  James  K.  Jones,  of  Arkansas;  Perry  Bel- 
mont,  and  Roswell  P.  Flower,  of  New  York,  and  William  S.  Holman, 
of  Indiana.  Mr.  Holman  had  been  a  conspicuous  figure  in  the  House 
of  Representatives,  but  was  not  a  member  of  the  46th  Congress.  The 
Republican  leaders  who  were  forging  to  the  front  were  Thomas  B. 
Reed  and  William  McKinley,  Jr.  Few  of  the  new  men  in  the  47th 
Congress  became  prominent  in  Republican  politics. 

The  principal  measures  in  the  47th  Congress  were  legislation  for  the 
punishment  of  Polygamy,  the  Chinese  Question,  the  regulation  of 
Interstate  Commerce,  and  Banking  and  Currency,  Civil-service  Re- 
form, and  the  Tariff. 

The  bill  to  punish  polygamy  was  not  made  a  party  question,  only 
forty-two  Democrats  voting  against  it. 

The  Chinese  bill  was  the  first  attempt  to  regulate  immigration 
under  the  amended  Burlingame  treaty.  It  was  passed  by  Democratic 
and  Republican  votes,  64  Republicans  and  only  3  Democrats  voting 
against  it;  but  it  was  vetoed  by  President  Arthur.  The  bill  failed  to 
pass  over  the  President's  veto  in  the  Senate,  in  which  it  originated, 
but  a  new  bill,  reported  in  the  House  April  17,  1882,  was  passed  by 
both  Houses  and  approved  by  the  President. 

The  effort  for  the  regulation  of  Interstate  Commerce  was  begun  in 
the  46th  Congress,  when  a  bill  to  establish  an  Interstate  Commerce 
Commission  failed  in  the  House.  The  question,  however,  had  become 
one  of  such  pressing  importance  that  the  subject  was  renewed  at  the 
first  session  of  the  47th  Congress.  The  unrestricted  building  of  rail- 
roads had  resulted  in  destructive  competition,  and  was  one  of  the 
direct  causes  of  the  panic  of  1873.  In  1877,  when  the  country  was 
just  beginning  to  recover  from  the  shock,  business  was  again  dis- 
turbed and  depressed  by  the  trouble  between  the  railroad  companies 
and  their  workmen,  which  in  some  places  culminated  in  riot  and 
bloodshed.  Notwithstanding  these  disturbances  and  the  disasters 


424  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

that  had  forced  many  of  the  railroad  companies  into  bankruptcy, 
artificially  stimulated  railroad  building  continued,  portending  evils 
that  soon  became  realities.  Besides,  great  mishaps  ensued  from  the 
almost  unrestrained  power  of  the  railroads  in  the  matter  of  their 
charges.  By  charging  some  shippers  more  and  others  less,  by  means 
of  secret  contracts,  the  railroad  officials  opened  to  themselves  a  field 
of  unlimited  profit.  The  cost  of  transportation  being  such  an  im- 
portant factor  in  the  price  of  commodities,  it  was  easy  for  the  railways 
to  enrich  one  man  and  beggar  or  drive  out  of  business  another  in  the 
same  trade,  and  this  was  done  according  to  the  personal  interests  of 
the  man  or  men  who  could  thus  make  rates.  More  than  this,  it  was  not 
at  all  difficult  for  the  railroad  to  impoverish  one  town  or  city  and 
build  up  another  by  discriminating  in  rates.  In  the  Hepburn  com- 
mittee's investigation  of  the  New  York  railroads,  in  1879,  it  was 
shown  that  the  milling  business  in  certain  towns  of  northern  New 
York  had  been  killed  by  railroads  granting  rates  which  favored  Min- 
neapolis and  other  western  points.  The  merchants  of  New  York  at 
that  time  complained  that  the  discriminations  of  the  railroads  against 
the  metropolis  were  driving  away  its  trade  to  Baltimore  and  other 
points.  The  creation  of  a  railroad  commission  became  a  recognized 
necessity  in  many  of  the  States,  and  Congress  was  asked  to  establish 
an  Interstate  Commission  to  prevent  unjust  discriminations.  Al- 
though no  action  was  taken  by  Congress  at  the  time,  the  question  re- 
mained an  open  one,  and  after  many  renewed  efforts  the  Interstate 
Commerce  Act  was  finally  approved  February  4,  1887. 

A  bill  to  enable  national  banking  associations  to  extend  their  cor- 
porate existence  was  passed  in  1882. 

"  The  civil  service,"  President  Garfield  said,  in  his  Inaugural  Ad- 
dress, "  can  never  be  placed  on  a  satisfactory  basis  until  it  is  regu- 
lated by  law.  For  the  good  of  the  service  itself,  for  the  protection 
of  those  who  are  intrusted  with  the  appointing  power  against  the 
waste  of  time  and  obstruction  to  the  public  business  caused  by  the  in- 
ordinate pressure  for  place,  and  for  the  protection  of  incumbents 
against  intrigue  and  wrong,  I  shall  at  the  proper  time,  ask  Congress 
to  fix  the  tenure  of  the  minor  offices  of  the  several  Executive  Depart- 
ments, and  prescribe  the  grounds  upon  which  removals  shall  be  made 
during  the  terms  for  which  incumbents  have  been  appointed."  Presi- 
dent Arthur,  in  his  first  annual  message,  discussed  the  question  at 
length;  but  the  Pendleton  Civil-service  Act  was  not  passed  until 
early  in  1883.  This  measure  was  supported  by  Republicans  and  Demo- 
crats, but  the  opposition  was  made  up  almost  entirely  of  Democrats, 
only  seven  Republicans  voting  against  the  bill  in  the  House.  The 
law  established  the  Civil  Service  Commission,  authorized  competitive 
examinations,  and  provided  for  appointments  and  promotions  in  the 


PRESIDENT  ARTHUR'S   ADMINISTRATION.  425 

government  service.  The  measure  was  enlarged  by  provisions  pro- 
hibiting United  States  officials  from  paying  to  or  collecting  from 
each  other  money  for  political  purposes.  If  President  Garfleld  had 
lived  it  would  not  have  been  possible  to  secure  a  more  satisfactory 
reform  of  the  Civil  Service. 

The  one  measure  in  the  47th  Congress  on  which  party  lines  were 
strictly  drawn  was  the  revision  of  the  tariff.  The  Tariff  of  1883 
marked  the  beginning  of  a  new  crusade  against  Protection,  while  not 
boldly  advocating  Free  Trade.  The  M on-ill  Tariff  of  1861  had  re- 
mained practically  undisturbed  for  more  than  twenty  years.  Dur- 
ing half  of  that  period  it  was  regarded  merely  as  a  tariff  for  revenue, 
notwithstanding  its  Protective  features.  There  had  been  modifica- 
tions and  reductions,  but  no  change  that  attracted  the  attention  of 
the  country,  or  precipitated  a  political  conflict.  As  the  Republican 
platform  of  1880  contained  a  distinctive  protective  plank,  and  Gen- 
eral Hancock  had  been  beaten  on  the  issue  of  a  "  tariff  for  revenue 
only,"  the  majority  in  the  House  of  Representatives  considered  them- 
selves pledged  to  a  broad  application  of  the  principle  of  Protection. 
The  Senate  was  looking  to  revision  with  a  view  to  reduction.  The 
first  step  was  the  creation  of  the  Tariff  Commission  of  1882.  The 
Commission  comprised  John  L.  Hayes,  of  Massachusetts,  Chairman; 
Henry  W.  Oliver,  Jr.,  of  Pennylvania;  Austin  M.  Garland,  of  Illinois; 
Jacob  A.  Ambler,  of  Ohio;  Robert  P.  Porter,  of  the  District  of  Colum- 
bia; Jno.  W.  H.  Underwood,  of  Georgia;  Duncan  F.  Kenner,  of  Louis- 
iana; Alexander  R.  Boteler,  of  West  Virginia,  and  Wm.  H.  McMahon, 
of  New  York.  It  was,  or  was  intended  to  be,  a  non-partisan  Commis- 
sion, charged  with  the  difficult  task  of  correcting  the  incongruities  of 
the  existing  tariff,  and  adapting  the  rates  of  duty  to  the  newer  and 
more  diversified  industries  that  were  claiming  the  attention  of  Con- 
gress. The  Commission  worked  laboriously  between  May  and  De- 
cember, 1882,  sitting  in  various  places,  and  hearing  every  interest  that 
sought  relief  or  encouragement.  The  report  contemplated  a  reduc- 
tion of  duties  of  at  least  25  per  cent,  along  the  entire  line  of  imports, 
and  formed  the  basis  of  the  Tariff  bill  of  1883,  although  Congress  did 
not  adopt  all  the  recommendations  of  the  Commission. 

At  the  time  the  report  was  made  a  House  bill  to  reduce  Internal 
Revenue  taxation  was  pending  in  the  Senate.  This  the  Senate 
amended  so  freely  that  little  or  nothing  of  the  original  measure  was 
left,  and  a  tax  bill  was  adroitly  turned  into  a  Tariff  bill.  The  House 
was  disposed  to  resent  the  Senate  bill  as  an  invasion  of  the  Consti- 
tutional right  of  the  House  of  Representatives  to  originate  revenue 
bills,  but  the  wThole  question  was  finally  referred  to  a  Committee  of 
Conference,  which  agreed  upon  a  bill  that  was  passed  by  both 
Houses.  This  was  the  Tariff  Act  of  1883.  It  was  a  compromise, 


426 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 


forced  upon  the  House  by  the  reactionary  tendencies  of  the  Senate. 
Like  most  compromises  it  not  only  failed  to  give  satisfaction,  but  re- 
opened an  agitation  that  had  lain  dormant  for  nearly  a  quarter  of  a 
century.  The  demand  of  the  manufacturers  for  reduced  duties  on 
raw  materials  and  an  increased  free  list  had  not  been  met.  The  pro- 
ducing classes,  on  the  other  hand,  believed  that  their  interests  had 
been  sacrificed  to  the  demands  of  the  manufacturers.  The  Tariff  had 
once  more  become  an  issue  on  which  the  people  had  no  settled  convic- 
tions. The  indorsement  of  a  protective  policy  in  1880  had  been  re- 
versed by  the  "  tidal  wave  "  of  1882,  and  the  48th  Congress  contained 
201  Democrats  to  119  Republicans  in  the  House,  with  4  Independents 
and  1  Greenbacker,  but  this  condition  was  neutralized  by  the  fact 
that  there  were  40  Republicans  in  the  Senate  to  36  Democrats. 

A  determined  effort  was  made  in  the  House  in  the  48th  Congress  to 
pass  what  was  known  as  the  Morrison  Tariff  bill,  which  provided  for 
the  horizontal  reduction  of  duties  to  the  amount  of  twenty  per  cent. 
This  bill  was  reported  March  11,  1884,  but  it  encountered  powerful 
Democratic  opposition  from  the  outset.  Thirty-nine  Democrats  voted 
with  the  Republicans  against  agreeing  to  its  consideration,  and  thir- 
ty-seven Democrats  voted  in  favor  of  striking  out  its  enacting  clause, 
while  six  Democrats  refrained  from  voting.  The  latter  motion  was 
carried  by  158  yeas  to  155  nays.  This  disposed  of  the  question  for  the 
time,  and  there  was  no  further  attempt  at  Tariff  legislation  until 
1886,  when  the  Morrison  bill  was  again  beaten.  A  Treasury  State- 
ment, issued  in  1884,  shows  the  average  ad  valorem  rates  for  the  six 
months  ending  December  31,  1882,  as  compared  with  the  average  ad 
valorem  rates  for  the  six  months  ended  December  31,  1883: 


ARTICLES. 

AVERAGE  AD  VALOREM   RATE 
DURING  THE  SIX  MONTHS 
ENDING  DECEMBER  31  . 

INCREASE* 
DECREASR- 

1882. 

1883, 

CORRECTED 
RATES. 

All  dutiable  merchandise  .                                 

42.34 
52.17 
39.12 

55.46 
50.19 
27.97 
66.71 
37.61 
58.69 
42.88 
54.49 
71.22 
44.43 

36.71 

42.85 
32.97 

45.58 
38.92 
21.78 
62.19 
39.53 
49-87 
55.99 
55.58 
89.50 
43.84 

-5.63 
-9.32 
-6.15 

-9.88 
-11.27 
-6.01 
-4.52 
*1.92 
-8.82 
*13.11 
*1.09 
*18.28 
-0.59 

Sugar  and  melada  ...            .    .        

Iron  and  steel  and  manufactures  thereof     

Wool  : 
Clothing  wool           

Combing  wool  ... 

Carpet  wool  

Manufactures  of  wool    

Manufactures  of  cotton     ,    .        

Manufactures  of  silk  .    . 

Earthen  and  china  ware    

Glass  and  glassware  

Spirits  and  wines    '..... 

Malt  liquors     

It  appears,  therefore,  as  nearly  as  can  now  be  ascertained,  that  the 
Act  of  March  3,  1883,  of  itself  and  aside  from  the  influence  of  other 


PRESIDENT   ARTHUR'S   ADMINISTRATION.  427 

conditions  caused  the  following  changes  in  ad  valorem  rates:  On  all 
dutiable  merchandise,  a  fall  of  5.63;  on  sugar  and  melada,  a  fall  of  9.32; 
on  iron  and  steel  and  manufactures  thereof,  a  fall  of  6.15;  on  clothing 
wool,  a  fall  of  9.88;  on  combing  wool,  a  fall  of  11.27;  on  carpet  wool, 
a  fall  of  6.01;  on  manufactures  of  wool,  a  fall  of  4.52;  on  manufac- 
tures of  cotton,  an  increase  of  1.92;  on  manufactures  of  silk,  a  fall  of 
8.82;  on  earthen  and  china  ware,  an  increase  of  13.11;  on  glass  and 
glassware,  a  rise  of  1.09;  on  spirits  and  wines,  an  increase  of  18.28; 
and  on  malt  liquors,  a  fall  of  0.59.  All  these  rates  are  on  the  market 
value  of  the  goods  in  the  countries  from  which  they  are  exported. 

In  the  48th  Congress  the  changes  in  the  Senate  were  not  great.  The 
new  Republican  Senators  were  Thomas  M.  Bo  wen,  of  Colorado;  Shel- 
by M.  Cullom,  of  Illinois;  James  F.  Wilson,  of  Iowa;  Thomas  W.  Pal- 
mer, of  Michigan;  Dwight  M.  Sabin,  of  Minnesota;  Charles  F.  Mander- 
son,  of  Nebraska;  Austin  F.  Pike,  of  New  Hampshire;  Joseph  N. 
Dolph,  of  Oregon;  Jonathan  Chace,  of  Rhode  Island;  and  Harrison  H. 
Riddleberger,  of  Virginia.  The  Republican  gains  were  Mr.  Dolph, 
who  succeeded  Lafayette  Grover,  and  Mr.  Riddleberger,  who  displaced 
John  W.  Johnston.  In  the  House  the  new  Republicans  were  Ransom 
W.  Dunham,  John  F.  Finerty,  Reuben  Ellwood,  Robert  R.  Hitt,  and 
Jonathan  R.  Rowell,  of  Illinois;  David  B.  Henderson,  Hiram  Y.  Smith, 
Adoniram  J.  Holmes,  and  Isaac  S.  Struble,  of  Iowa;  Edmund  N.  Mor- 
rell,  Lewis  Hanbuck,  Samuel  R.  Peters,  Bishop  W.  Perkins,  and  Ed- 
ward H.  Funston,  of  Kansas;  William  W.  Culbertson,  of  Kentucky; 
William  P.  Kellogg,  of  Louisiana;  Charles  A.  Boutelle  and  Seth  L. 
Milliken,  of  Maine;  Hart  B.  Holton,  and  Louis  E.  McComas,  of  Mary- 
land; Robert  T.  Davis,  John  D.  Long,  William  Whiting,  and  Francis 
S.  Rockwell,  of  Massachusetts;  Byron  M.  Cutcheon,  Herschel  H. 
Hatch,  and  Edward  Breitung,  of  Michigan;  Milo  White,  James  B. 
Waken1  eld,  and  Knute  Nelson,  of  Minnesota;  Elza  Jeffords,  of  Missis- 
sippi; Archibald  J.  Weaver  and  James  Laird,  of  Nebraska;  Martin 
A.  Haynes,  of  New  Hampshire;  John  Kean,  Jr.,  and  Benjamin  F. 
Howey,  of  New  Jersey;  Darwin  R.  James,  Henry  G.  Burleigh,  Fred- 
erick A.  Johnson,  George  W.  Ray,  Newton  W.  Nutting,  Sereno  E. 
Payne,  and  Stephen  C.  Millard,  of  New  York;  James  E.  O'Hara,  of 
North  Carolina;  John  W.  McCormick,  Alphonso  Hart,  and  Joseph 
D.  Taylor,  of  Ohio;  James  B.  Everhart,  I.  Newton  Evans,  William  W. 
Brown,  Louis  E.  Atkinson,  and  Samuel  M.  Brainerd,  of  Pennsyl- 
vania; Nathan  F.  Dixon,  of  Rhode  Island;  Robert  Smalls,  of  South 
Carolina;  John  W.  Stewart,  of  Vermont;  John  S.  Wise,  Harry  Libbey, 
Benjamin  S.  Hooper,  and  Henry  Bowen,  of  Virginia;  Nathan  Goff,  of 
West  Virginia,  and  William  T.  Price,  and  Isaac  Stephenson,  of  Wis- 
consin. Leonidas  C.  Houk,  of  Tennessee,  was  again  returned,  as  was 
also  the  venerable  Luke  P.  Poland,  of  Vermont.  The  most  conspicu- 


428  HISTORY   OF   THE   REPUBLICAN    PARTY. 

ous  of  those  who  had  disappeared  was  William  McKinley,  Jr.,  of  Ohio. 
John  G.  Carlisle,  of  Kentucky,  was  elected  (Speaker,  his  election  being- 
intended  as  a  rebuke  of  the  wing  of  the  Democracy  in  the  47th  Con- 
gress that  had  followed  the  lead  of  Samuel  J.  Randall  on  the  Tariff 
question. 

The  legislation  of  the  48th  Congress  was  unimportant,  partly  be- 
cause the  Republican  Senate  held  the  Democratic  House  in  check, 
and  partly  because  the  Democrats  were  unable  to  agree  on  a  policy. 
When  the  Congress  met  in  December,  1883,  both  parties  had  the  ap- 
proaching Presidential  election  in  view.  The  new  Tariff  had  not 
given  satisfaction,  and  it  was  clear  that  Tariff  revision  would  force 
itself  upon  the  country  as  an  issue  in  the  campaign.  The  Repub- 
lican party,  true  to  its  traditions,  \vas  willing  to  accept  the  issue  in 
all  its  bearings,  including  the  Protective  feature.  The  Democrats 
talked  of  revision,  but  were  unable  to  formulate  any  scheme  except 
the  plan  of  reduction  enunciated  in  the  Morrison  bill.  That  was  an 
expedient  intended  to  be  without  practical  effect,  and  to  be  used  only 
as  a  basis  for  discussion.  The  Democratic  politicians  had  ceased 
to  be  economic  statesmen,  and  were  only  holding  themselves  in  readi- 
ness to  oppose  whatever  the  Republicans  proposed.  It  was  an  epoch 
of  discussion,  not  of  action,  and  it  is  scarcely  surprising  that  the  48th 
Congress  was  more  barren  in  legislation  than  any  of  its  predecessors. 

In  the  beginning  of  1884  parties  were  adrift  as  well  as  Congress. 
The  feuds  of  1881-82  had  left  the  Republican  party  in  a  condition  of 
incertitude.  There  was  no  concentration  in  favor  of  any  particular 
candidate  as  in  previous  Presidential  years.  It  was  not  even  knowrn 
whether  Mr.  Elaine  desired  the  nomination.  Democratic  action  was 
also  in  doubt,  but  there  was  a  growing  sentiment  in  favor  of  Govern- 
or Cleveland,  of  New  York.  For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of 
American  politics  the  interest  in  the  two  great  National  Conventions 
was  lukewarm,  and  parties  were  waiting  for  the  canvass  to  shape  the 
issues  instead  of  the  issues  shaping  the  canvass.  There  was  no  real 
appreciation  of  the  vitality  of  the  Tariff  question.  Since  his  with- 
drawal from  President  Arthur's  Cabinet,  three  months  after  Gar- 
field's  death,  Mr.  Blaine  had  been  living  in  retirement,  engaged  on 
his  "  Twenty  Years  of  Congress;  from  Lincoln  to  Garfield."  Although 
that  work  contains  an  elaborate  review  of  American  Tariff  legisla- 
tion previous  to  1860,  it  dismisses  the  operations  of  the  Merrill  Tariff 
and  its  changes  with  a  few  paragraphs.  Other  political  writers  of 
the  epoch  are  equally  indifferent  to  the  subject.  It  was,  however, 
to  become  the  real  question  of  the  future,  and  the  one  upon  which  the 
fate  of  candidates  and  parties  hinged  in  this  Epoch  of  Defeat  and 
Recoverv. 


III. 

THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1884. 

General  Benjamin  F.  Butler  the  First  Candidate  Nominated — In  Fa- 
vor of  Greenbacks  and  Against  Monopoly — Butler's  Arraignment 
of  the  Old  Parties — Potency  of  Populistic  Theories — Arthur  and 
Blaine  as  Presidential  Candidates — The  Republican  National 
Convention — A  Great  Threshing  Machine — Claims  of  the  Arthur 
and  Blaine  Delegates — Opening  of  the  Convention — Contest  for 
Temporary  Chairman — Graphic  Description  of  the  Scene- 
Causes  of  the  Contest — General  Henderson  Permanent  President 
—Changes  in  the  Rules — The  Platform — The  Nominating 
Speeches — Judge  West's  Speech — Arthur  Named — The  Ballots 
—Blaine  Nominated — How  Maine  Received  the  News — Gen- 
eral Logan  for  Vice-President — Cleveland  and  Hendricks  Nomin- 
ated by  the  Democrats — "  Tell  the  Truth  " — The  Campaign — 
Causes  of  Elaine's  Defeat. 

HE  National  Conventions  of  1884  show  the  interest  that  was 
felt  in  the  economic  questions  that  had  been  so  long  held 
in  abeyance.  The  first  of  these  was  the  Convention  of  the 
Anti-Monopoly  party.  This  was  a  new  party  that  had 
sprung  into  existence  like  a  mushroom  overnight.  The  Convention 
met  at  Chicago  on  May  14,  and  nominated  General  Benjamin  F.  Butler 
for  President  by  122  votes,  to  7  for  Allen  G.  Thurman,  of  Ohio,  and  1 
for  Solon  Chase,  of  Maine.  The  nomination  of  a  candidate  for  Vice- 
President  was  left  to  the  National  Committee,  which  adopted  the  can- 
didate of  the  National,  or  Greenback  party,  General  Alanson  M.  West, 
of  Mississippi.  The  Greenback  National  Convention  was  held  at  In- 
dianapolis on  May  28,  and  before  nominating  General  West  for  Vice- 
President,  it  nominated  General  Butler  for  President.  Butler  re- 
ceived 322  votes,  to  99  for  Jesse  Harper,  of  Illinois;  2  for  Solon  Chase, 
of  Maine;  1  for  Edward  P.  Allis,  of  Wisconsin,  and  1  for  David  Davis, 
of  Illinois.  Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  General  Butler  received  two 
nominations  before  either  of  the  two  great  National  Conventions  met. 
The  Anti-Monopoly  party  denounced  the  existing  tariff  as  largely 
in  the  interest  of  monopoly,  and  demanded  that  it  be  speedily  and 
radically  reformed  in  the  interest  of  labor  instead  of  capital.  Ac- 
cording to  the  platform  of  the  Greenback  party,  both  the  old  parties 
in  Congress  were  vying  with  each  other  to  repeal  taxes  for  the  bene- 


430  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY, 

fit  of  the  banks,  but  as  they  could  not  agree  upon  which  taxes  to 
repeal,  were  squandering  the  revenue  instead  of  paying  the  national 
debt  with  paper.  Butler  accepted  both  nominations,  and  issued  an 
address  "  to  my  constituents,"  which  served  as  a  letter  of  acceptance. 
It  was  a  very  long  document.  In  this  address  he  vigorously  arraigned 
the  old  parties,  both  of  which  he  had  served  by  turns. 

"  The  country,"  he  said,  "  has  had  no  experience  for  nearly  a  quarter 
of  a  century  of  what  the  Democracy  would  do  if  they  had  the  power, 
so  that  the  people  are  obliged  to  require  the  most  explicit  pledges 
from  them  of  intended  action  before  we  can  put  the  government  in 
their  hands.  But  the  farmer  and  the  laboring  man  do  know  that  a 
Democratic  House  of  Representatives  has  just  appropriated  more 
money  raised  by  taxation  than  any  other  House  of  Representatives 
has  ever  appropriated  in  time  of  peace.  We  also  know  that  the  Demo- 
cratic majority  would  have  made  a  free-trade  tariff,  containing  all 
the  odious  features  of  the  present  war  tariff,  so  far  as  regards  its 
monstrous  inequalities,  by  a  horizontal  reduction  of  the  tariff  to  break 
down  very  many  rising  and  struggling  industries,  and  to  bring  destruc- 
tion to  the  homes  of  our  workingmen  and  the  home  markets  of  the 
American  producers.  Who  does  not  know  that  the  very  fear  of  the 
action  of  the  Democracy  in  Congress  has  so  paralyzed  American  en- 
terprise and  business  that  mills  are  everywhere  closing,  mines  shut 
up,  furnaces  blown  out,  and  every  kind  of  employment  so  curtailed 
thatthemechanicsand workingmen  are  not  earning  enough  to  support 
life  in  comfort;  so  that  the  farmer  even,  deprived  of  a  home  market, 
and  crushed  down  by  discriminating  rates  of  transportation,  finds  his 
corn,  wheat,  and  wool  lower  than  it  has  been  within  the  present  gen- 
eration? Can  the  people,  therefore,  trust  the  machine  Democracy 
with  power,  upon  a  shifting,  evasive,  and  deceptive  platform?  " 

He  then  turned  his  attention  to  the  Republicans. 

"  The  Republican  party  in  its  inception,"  he  declared,  "  was  emphat- 
ically the  party  of  the  people.  It  had  in  it  substantially  neither  mo- 
nopolist nor  capitalist.  It  was  as  poor  as  was  the  convention  of  dele- 
gates who  framed  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  Taking  out  five 
men,  the  rest  could  hardly  pay  their  board  bills.  The  Republican 
party  was  formed  upon  a  grand  and  noble  idea — to  do  for  one  class 
of  workingmen  what  the  Democratic  party,  even  under  Jefferson  and 
Jackson,  had  failed  to  do.  Their  Democracy  had  dealt  only  with  the 
white  man.  The  Democracy  of  the  Republican  party  dealt  with  the 
black  man,  and  aimed  to  give  him  freedom  and  equal  rights.  For  that 
purpose,  and  that  alone,  was  the  party  formed.  It  was  the  radical 
party,  and  so  radical  a  party  of  the  people  that  the  aristocratic  part 
of  the  Whig  party,  the  old  adversaries  of  the  Democracy  of  the  days 


THE   CAMPAIGN   OF   1884.  431 

of  Jackson,  merged  themselves  in  the  Democracy  without  a  drop  of 
Democratic  blood,  as  they  hoped,  in  their  veins,  or  a  thought  for  the 
people,  except  as  the  lowest  classes  in  their  party,  and  such  of  them 
as  a  quarter  of  a  century  has  spared  are  found  with  the  Democracy 
to-day,  largely  guiding  its  councils  in  the  manner  we  have  seen.  The 
necessity  for  money  to  carry  on  the  war  drew  all  the  bankers  and  cap- 
italists into  the  Republican  party.  The  immense  fortunes  almost 
necessarily  growing  out  of  the  vast  expenditures  of  the  war  fell  into 
the  hands  of  men  who  attached  themselves  to  the  party  that  fed  them, 
as  the  iron  is  attracted  to  the  magnet,  and  monopolized  industries 
and  enterprises.  The  necessity  to  bind  together  the  eastern  and 
western  shores  of  the  Republic  by  methods  of  quick  transportation, 
giving  reason  for  immense  subsidies,  granted  to  make  three  systems 
of  railroad  across  the  continent,  with  all  their  branches  and  feeders, 
created  wealth  in  corporations  and  individuals  to  a  degree  before 
unheard  of  in  this  or  any  other  country,  and  brought  all  those  inter- 
ests substantially  into  the  Republican  party.  And  if  any  stayed  in 
the  Democratic  party  they  were  in  confederation  with  the  same  class, 
to  so  arrange  politics  that  whichever  party  came  in  power,  capital,  in 
all  its  varied  and  powerful  forms,  would  be  sure  of  control,  and  the 
people  ground  up  as  '  between  the  upper  and  nether  millstone.'  Thus 
it  will  be  readily  seen,  and  he  who  runs  may  read,  that  the  Repub- 
lican party  is  the  party  of  monopoly,  of  corporate  interests  in  every 
form  of  industry,  and  every  department  of  business  and  finance.  .  . 
In  the  matter  of  finance  there  is  nothing  to  hope  from  the  Republican 
party  any  more  than  from  the  Democratic  party.  The  bankers  and 
capitalists  of  both  parties  uniting  together  have  controlled  for  twenty 
years  the  financial  legislation  of  the  nation.  And  the  result?  What 
have  we  just  seen?  With  money  enough  in  the  country  for  all  its 
wants,  and  no  substantial  drain  from  abroad;  with  an  accumulation 
of  wealth  such  as  the  world  has  never  seen;  with  a  crop  of  corn  and 
wheat  almost  untouched,  and  another  one  about  to  be  garnered;  with 
a  stock  of  petroleum  already  produced  sufficient  for  the  consumption 
of  the  world  for  a  year;  with  nearly  a  year's  stock  already  produced 
of  cotton  goods;  with  more  than  six  months'  stock  of  woolen  goods 
as  they  will  average;  with  a  production  of  iron  that  leaves  its  further 
production  impossible;  with  provisions  in  such  abundance  that  the 
means  of  sustaining  life  are  cheaper  than  before  for  fifty  years;  yet, 
because  of  our  financial  systems  in  every  class  of  business,  embarrass- 
ments and  failures  to  an  unheard  of  extent,  with  banks  locking  up 
their  money  in  millions  upon  millions,  and  allowing  their  customers, 
who,  by  our  financial  system  have  been  made  dependent  upon  them, 
to  be  ruined;  the  producing  laborer  goes  about  the  streets  unem- 


432  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

ployed,  and  the  farmer's  wheat,  which  with  our  fathers  was  a  meas- 
ure of  value,  is  a  drug  in  the  market,  and  that  which  he  raises  to-day, 
produced  by  the  sweat  of  his  face,  is  without  profit  to  his  industry." 

Although  General  Butler's  candidature  had  no  greater  political  im- 
portance than  the  candidature  of  Peter  Cooper  eight  years  before,  the 
platform  on  which  he  stood  and  the  principles  that  he  advocated  were 
significant  of  the  unrest  in  the  two  great  parties  of  the  country.  In 
spite  of  the  opposition  of  the  Kepublican  factions  that  claimed  to  have 
inherited  the  policy  of  Garfield's  administration — the  "  Half-breeds  " 
in  New  York  and  the  "  Independents  "  in  Pennsylvania,  especially— 
President  Arthur  had  given  satisfaction  to  the  party  and  the  country. 
It  was  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  he  should  look  forward  to  a 
nomination  from  the  Kepublican  National  Convention.  It  was  sur- 
prising, however,  that  a  "  business  meeting  "  in  New  York  in  his  in- 
terest should  be  used  to  his  injury  by  the  friends  of  General  Logan 
and  Mr.  Elaine,  on  the  charge  that  there  was  "  a  flavor  of  Wall 
Street  "  about  it.  This  cry  is  a  proof  that  the  populistic  principles  of 
General  Butler's  address  could  be  used  with  effect  in  the  Kepub- 
lican party  in  the  manipulation  of  a  great  National  Convention  in 
1884. 

The  time  fixed  for  the  meeting  of  the  Republican  National  Conven- 
tion was  June  3,  but  the  friends  of  the  candidates  began  to  gather  in 
Chicago  as  early  as  May  30.  It  was  claimed  at  the  outset  that  Blaine 
was  the  choice  of  the  Republican  States,  while  Arthur's  strength 
was  almost  wholly  in  Democratic  States;  that  Blaine  would  be  as 
strong  in  New  York  as  Arthur,  while  Arthur  might  not  be  able  to 
carry  Pennsylvania.  The  key  of  the  situation  on  Saturday  and  Sun- 
day preceding  the  Convention  was  the  support  of  the  Southern  dele- 
gations. If  the  South  could  be  kept  solid  for  Arthur  it  was  believed  by 
the  President's  managers  that  his  nomination  was  assured.  In  view 
of  this  condition  the  first  efforts  of  Elaine's  friends  were  directed 
toward  breaking  the  Southern  delegations.  The  first  defection  was  in 
the  Arkansas  delegation  under  the  lead  of  Powell  Clayton.  This  hap- 
pened before  the  majority  of  the  Northern  delegates  had  arrived.  It 
was  followed  by  the  demoralization  of  the  Southern  delegates,  and 
later  by  the  disintegration  of  the  delegations.  The  confidence  and  en- 
thusiasm of  Mr.  Elaine's  supporters  became  irresistible,  but  Arthur's 
friends  until  the  last  refused  to  confess  themselves  beaten.  "  It's  all 
right,"  cheerfully  remarked  Collector  Gould,  of  Buffalo,  who  was 
looking  after  things;  "  Arthur  will  be  nominated  just  the  same,  and 
I  would  advise  you  to  say  so.  Henry  Clay  had  the  hurrah,  too,  but  the 
other  fellow  had  the  votes,  and  that's  us." 

One  of  the  newspaper  correspondents  described  each  of  the  Chi- 


THE   CAMPAIGN    OF    1884.  433 

cago  headquarters  on  the  day  preceding  the  Convention  as  a  great 
threshing-machine,  in  which  820  delegates  were  being  threshed  out 
and  winnowed  into  the  hoppers  marked  Blaine,  Arthur,  Logan,  and 
the  rest.  The  biggest  of  these  threshers  filled  a  whole  corridor  of  the 
Grand  Pacific,  and  on  each  side  of  the  Blaine  thresher  stood  "  those 
mighty  delegate  hunters,  Steve  Elkins  and  Tom  Donaldson."  In  at- 
tendance upon  this  machine  were  the  "  slow-footed  Warner  Miller," 
the  "  bobbing  Tom  Cooper,"  the  "  bald-headed  Tom  Platt,"  the  "  sober, 
benignant  Robertson,"  and  the  "  expansive  Boutelle."  There,  too, 
was  a  free-spoken  Californian,  who  met  the  mild  plea  of  an  Indepen- 
dent that  the  business  interests  feared  Blaine  with  the  response, 
"  Why,  bless  your  soul,  we  have  three  men  in  our  delegation  who  pay 
more  taxes  than  Curtis  and  his  literary  crowd  ever  sneezed  at." 

At  the  Arthur  thresher  were  James  Warren,  of  Buffalo,  "  a  large, 
comfortable,  and  thin-whiskered  man  ";  Frank  Hatton,  "  alert,  mus- 
tached,  and  bumptious  ";  the  "  wiry  Burleigh,"  the  "  heavy,  grouty  " 
General  George  H.  Sharpe,  and  Mahone,  with  his  "  long  hair,  short, 
limp  cuffs,  and  rumpled  shirtfront."  The  other  threshers  were  neither 
so  picturesque  nor  so  constantly  at  work.  From  first  to  last  it  was  ap- 
parent that  the  contest  was  between  Blaine  and  Arthur,  and  the 
Blaine  men  were  especially  expansive  in  their  proclamations  of  the 
strength  of  their  candidate.  "  Blaine,"  said  twenty  of  the  New 
York  delegates  in  a  "  message  "  to  the  Convention,  "  can  get  more 
votes  in  the  State  of  New  York  than  any  other  man,  and  can  carry  the 
State  triumphantly.  An  analysis  of  the  Republican  representation 
in  the  National  Convention,  on  the  basis  of  the  Presidential  vote  of 
1880,  shows  that  from  President  Arthur's  own  State  a  decided  ma- 
jority of  the  delegates  to  the  Convention  are  opposed  to  his  nomina- 
tion; that  the  overwhelming  preponderance  of  the  delegates  from 
the  districts  giving  Republican  majorities  is  for  Blaine;  that  twelve 
Republican  districts  and  four  Democratic  districts  are  for  Blaine;  that 
five  other  districts  sent  Edmunds,  or  anti-Arthur  delegates,  while  but 
five  Republican  districts  sent  delegates  for  Arthur,  the  large  ma- 
jority of  his  support  coming  from  ten  Democratic  districts;  that  in  the 
Blaine  districts  there  is  an  aggregate  of  63,773  Republican  majorities, 
against  17,456  Republican  majorities  in  the  Arthur  districts.  These 
facts  and  figures  are  conclusive,  that  in  New  York,  as  in  other  States, 
where  the  electoral  votes  may  be  given  to  a  Republican  candidate 
for  President,  the  direct  Republican  expression  is  in  favor  of  James 
G.  Elaine's  nomination;  indeed,  that  he  is  the  accepted  leader  of  the 
Republican  party  to  a  sure  victory."  If  this  had  been  true,  James  G. 
Rlaine,  not  Grover  Cleveland,  would  have  been  President  Arthur's 
successor. 


434  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

As  the  noon  hour  approached  on  the  first  day  of  the  Convention 
great  crowds  flowed  toward  the  Exposition  Building,  to  enter  which 
only  ticket-holders  had  the  "  open  sesame."  There  a  vast  multitude 
witnessed  the  assembling  of  the  delegates,  and  awaited  the  opening 
of  the  great  quadrennial  Council  of  the  Republican  party. 

"  At  last,"  wrote  one  of  the  historians  of  the  scene,  with  a  pro- 
fusion of  single  and  double-breasted  adjectives  that  only  quotation 
marks  can  justify,  "  Chairman  Sabin,  with  his  broad,  sallow  face  and 
curving  mustache,  stepped  forward  and  put  his  hand  on  the  starting 
bar,  picking  up  a  little  mallet,  sadly  out  of  place  in  a  situation  which 
needed  a  beetle  to  deal  a  controlling  blow.  A  slim  clergyman,  with  a 
white  hand  and  a  small  mustache,  made  an  eloquent  prayer,  which 
drew  subdued  applause  from  people  who  mistook  the  peroration  not 
unnaturally  for  a  speech,  and  the  big,  broad-shouldered  Kansas  Mar- 
tin, who  acts  as  Secretary  of  the  National  Committee,  read  an  in- 
audible call.  A  little  stir,  a  sort  of  dressing  of  ranks,  and  Sabin's 
speech  ended  with  the  nomination  for  temporary  chairman  of  Powell 
Clayton,  a  tall,  sallow,  round-headed,  crop-haired  Arkansan,  with  an 
empty  sleeve  and  the  expression  of  a  Southwesterner.  Lodge,  of 
Massachusetts,  a  crisp-haired,  brown-bearded  young  fellow,  climbs  a 
chair  in  the  Massachusetts  delegation  and  puts  up  John  R.  Lynch. 
One  great  yell  goes  up — the  shrill  cry  of  Southern  delegates — as  a 
dozen  negroes  jumped  in  their  seats,  camp-meeting  fashion.  A  sturdy, 
stocky,  side-whiskered,  drover-like  looking  man,  Butcher,  of  New 
York,  seconds  the  nomination,  meeting  the  Edmunds  move  half-way 
with  an  Arthur  welcome.  Gravity  follows  in  every  Elaine  .State, 
while  the  Arthur  States  bubble  and  boil  over  into  the  aisle.  Frank 
Hatton,  slim  and  earnest,  watches  the  battle  on  one  side,  and  Sharpe, 
with  his  bulldog  face,  fairly  looks  pleasant.  Chris  Magee,  a  tall,  fine- 
looking  man,  seeks  a  side  aisle,  while  his  alternate  slips  into  his  seat, 
and  Tom  Cooper  looks  anxiously  from  a  high  stage  seat.  Speech- 
making  begins;  George  William  Curtis  on  one  side,  suave,  courtly, 
with  a  voice  of  wonderfully  sympathetic  quality,  and  a  face  all  soft 
serenity,  speaks,  his  voice  rising  and  falling  from  one  trembling  ca- 
dence to  another;  and  Stewart  on  the  other  side,  with  a  sharp,  strident 
voice,  and  clear,  dark  face,  and  features  with  a  straight,  strong  pro- 
file, puts  the  Elaine  side  in  a  great  stir  and  swing  and  rustle.  There 
are  other  speeches.  Carr,  of  Illinois,  a  big,  round  fellow,  with  a 
crackling,  explosive  voice,  rides  the  buzz  triumphantly.  Roosevelt's 
boyish  effort  is  drowned  in  it.  Hoar,  a  big,  broad-chested  swimmer  in 
this  sea  of  manifold  sound,  breasts  its  current  for  a  few  moments,  and, 
after  a  running  wrangle  over  the  method  of  voting,  the  slow  roll  is 
called.  It  takes  two  hours.  Man  after  man,  leaning  against  the 


THE   CAMPAIGN   OF   1884.  435 

reading  desk  and  shouting  his  share  of  820  names  into  space,  wearies 
of  the  work.  By  relays  it  goes  on.  A  name  is  called;  up  rises  a  dis- 
tant man,  and  shouts  the  syllabic  reply,  Powell  Clayton,  or  John  K. 
Lynch.  The  tally  goes  on.  The  cheering  is  short  and  small.  The 
interest  lies  below  the  names.  Illinois  starts  off  for  Clayton,  and  then 
the  votes  change  to  Lynch.  A  shout  goes  up.  Connecticut  shrewdly 
divides.  McKinley  leads  off  in  Ohio,  with  a  big  purple  badge  on  his 
breast.  New  Jersey  runs  by  commentless,  but  in  New  York  every 
vote  is  watched  until  the  full  Elaine  strength  is  registered  of  twenty- 
nine.  In  Pennsylvania  McManes  leads  off  for  Lynch.  Grow  raises 
his  gray  head  to  vote,  and  Stewart  steps  forward  with  hat  and  note- 
book tally  in  his  hand,  as  the  roll  runs  through  Republican  districts 
which  vote  for  Clayton.  Once  there  is  a  cheer  over  Tom  Platt,  and 
when  Virginia  is  reached  and  a  thin,  weazened,  long-haired  figure, 
Mahone,  rises,  the  cheering  rises  and  falls  like  the  pulse  of  a  storm. 
The  vote  is  known  before  it  is  announced,  and  a  tall  Mississippian 
jumps  on  a  chair  and  waves  the  square  yard  of  blue  silk  on  which  the 
State  is  marked.  Yell,  cheer,  and  shout,  hand-clapping  and  stamping, 
and  at  last  John  R.  Lynch,  a  mulatto  of  the  agile,  facile  type  of  ability 
in  many  directions,  takes  the  gavel  of  a  National  Convention  in  his 
hand.  The  rest  is  routine,  and  after,  an  empty  stump-speech,  the  great 
barrel  of  a  hall  empties,  and  surmises  and  speculation  over  the  vote  of 
431  for  Lynch  and  387  for  Clayton  spread  over  the  town." 

The  revolt  against  the  selection  of  General  Clayton  a$  temporary 
chairman  by  the  National  Committee,  and  the  choice  of  John  R. 
Lynch  in  his  stead,  can  not  be  attributed  to  any  political  necessity  or 
interest.  The  movement  was  apparently  a  spontaneous  one,  but  it 
resulted  from  a  motive  that  was  purely  sentimental— the  demand  of 
the  colored  Republicans  of  the  South  for  recognition  in  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  Convention.  In  view  of  his  desertion  from  President  Ar- 
thur, Clayton's  selection  was  not  regarded  by  Arthur's  friends  with 
enthusiasm,  but  the  Edmunds  men  were  more  openly  and  unequivo- 
cally hostile  to  the  choice  of  the  National  Committee  than  the  Arthur 
leaders.  Once  started,  the  movement  to  displace  General  Clayton  ac- 
quired force  rapidly,  and  the  friends  of  Mr.  Blaine  were  not  only  pow- 
erless to  stop  it,  but  even  to  appear  to  wish  to  stop  it.  It  was  an  un- 
gracious thing  to  do,  especially  in  the  case  of  a  Union  soldier  with  an 
empty  sleeve,  but  General  Clayton  made  the  best  of  the  situation, 
moving  that  the  election  of  Mr.  Lynch  should  be  made  unanimous, 
and,  with  Henry  Cabot  Lodge,  of  Massachusetts,  who  had  moved  the 
substitution,  escorting  the  black  presiding  officer  to  the  chair.  Mr. 
Lynch  himself  was  not  entirely  pleased  with  the  unexpected  honors 
thus  thrust  upon  him.  He  neither  expected  not  desired  the  position, 


436  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

and  in  his  opening  address  made  it  clear  that  he  was  not  thankful  for 
it.  Soon  after  the  temporary  organization  was  effected  a  resolu- 
tion pledging  the  delegates  to  the  support  of  the  nominee  was  offered 
by  Mr.  Hawkins,  of  Tennessee.  It  was  identical  with  the  resolution 
proposed  by  Mr.  Colliding  in  1880,  and  met  a  like  fate — after  arousing 
some  bitterness  of  feeling  it  was  withdrawn. 

The  report  of  the  Committee  on  Organization,  recommending  Gen- 
eral John  B.  Henderson,  of  Missouri,  for  permanent  President  of  the 
Convention,  was  made  by  B.  M.  Williams,  of  Indiana,  and  was  adopted 
without  objection.  In  his  address  General  Henderson  alluded  to  the 
candidates  for  the  Presidency,  beginning  with  Arthur  and  ending 
with  Elaine.  "  New  York,"  he  said,  "  has  her  true  and  tried  states- 
man, upon  whose  administration  the  fierce,  and  even  unfriendly  light 
of  public  scrutiny  has  been  turned,  and  the  universal  verdict  is, '  Well 
done,  thou  good  and  faithful  servant.'  Vermont  has  her  great  states- 
man, whose  mind  is  as  clear  as  the  crystal  springs  of  his  native  State, 
and  whose  virtue  is  as  firm  as  its  granite  hills.  Ohio  can  come  with 
a  name  whose  history  is  the  history  of  the  Republican  party  itself. 
Illinois  can  come  with  one  who  never  failed  in  the  discharge  of  public 
duty,  whether  in  council  chamber  or  on  field  of  battle.  Maine  has  her 
honored  favorite,  whose  splendid  abilities  and  personal  qualities  have 
endeared  him  to  the  hearts  of  his  friends,  and  the  brilliancy  of  whose 
genius  challenges  the  respect  and  admiration  of  all.  Connecticut 
and  Indiana  may  come  with  names  scarcely  less  illustrious  than 
these." 

It  was  not  until  the  morning  of  the  third  day  of  the  Convention  that 
the  Committees  on  Credentials,  Rules,  and  Resolutions  made  their  re- 
ports. There  was  a  number  of  contested  seats,  but  none  of  them  in- 
volved any  serious  question  of  principle  or  policy,  and  all  the  contests 
were  settled  in  accordance  with  the  report  of  the  Committee  on  Cre- 
dentials. The  report  of  the  Committee  on  Rules  was  not  so  easily 
disposed  of.  Rule  10,  which  provided  for  a  Republican  National 
Committee,  and  for  the  election  of  delegates  to  the  Republican  Na- 
tional Convention  of  1888,  gave  rise  to  some  debate  because  of  an 
amendment  offered  by  Mr.  Grow,  of  Pennsylvania.  This  amendment 
provided  for  the  election  of  delegates  from  the  Congress  districts  in 
each  State  and  Territory  in  the  same  manner  as  the  nomination  of 
members  of,  or  delegates  to  Congress  was  made.  It  was  adopted, 
and  the  Convention  proceeded  with  the  settlement  of  the  order  of 
business  which  had  not  been  provided  for  by  the  Committee;  but 
somehow  Rule  10  would  not  stay  adopted.  Mr.  Sanders,  of  Mon- 
tana, moved  the  adoption  of  a  proviso  declaring  that  no  person  should 
be  a  member  of  the  National  Committee  who  was  not  eligible  as  a 


THE   CAMPAIGN    OF   1884.  437 

member  of  the  Electoral  College.  This  was  aimed  at  Federal  office- 
holders. Its  necessity  was  explained  by  Mr.  Hoar,  of  Massachusetts. 
"  The  gentleman  from  Montana  asked  me,"  he  said,  "  to  explain,  for 
the  information  of  the  Convention,  the  law  passed  by  Congress  a 
year  ago,  commonly  known  as  the  Civil-service  Act.  It  was  not  the 
purpose  of  that  law  to  prohibit  any  Federal  officer  from  exercising 
all  the  rights  of  an  American  citizen.  It  is  expected  that  he  may  con- 
tribute of  his  service  or  of  his  money  to  the  cause  of  the  political  party 
to  which  he  belongs  as  he  would  to  the  cause  of  his  church,  or  to  any 
other  religious  or  humane  enterprise.  That  law  intended  to  prohibit 
the  exercise  of  official  power  over  men  in  official  stations,  and  to  that 
end  the  provision,  the  most  stringent  of  provisions,  has  been  enacted 
that  no  person  holding  an  official  position  shall  directly  or  indirectly 
receive  or  solicit  a  contribution  of  money  from  any  person  holding 
such  office.  Now,  as  to  the  Federal  officer,  or  a  member  of  the  Na- 
tional Committee,  it  will  equally  be  an  offense,  and  it  will  subject  him 
to  imprisonment  or  fine  if  that  committee,  either  by  itself,  or  by  its 
treasurer,  shall  receive  a  contribution  or  contributions  of  money 
from  any  other  Federal  officer  by  placing  upon  the  National  Commit- 
tee gentlemen  holding  such  offices,  and  prohibiting  your  fellow-citi- 
zens from  furnishing  any  service  or  aid  in  this  campaign  by  the  con- 
tribution of  money;  and  I  believe  it  was  the  purpose  of  the  gentleman 
from  Montana  to  have  that  clearly  understood  by  the  Convention  in 
calling  upon  me  to  say  what  I  have.  No  person  holding  a  Federal 
office  under  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  can  be  a  member 
of  the  Electoral  College."  After  this  explicit  explanation  the  pro- 
viso was  adopted  and  made  a  part  of  Eule  10. 

The  Convention,  however,  continued  to  discuss  the  method  of  rep- 
resentation in  National  Conventions  as  regarded  delegates-at-large, 
the  claim  being  made  that  it  was  unequal.  It  was  proposed,  in  addi- 
tion to  four  delegates-at-large,  to  give  each  State  a  delegate-at-large 
for  each  Representative-at-large,  if  any,  elected  at  the  last  preceding 
Presidential  election.  This  was  advocated  as  a  measure  of  equality, 
but  it  was  opposed  by  the  delegates  from  the  South  as  productive  of 
inequality.  "  Such  a  proposition,"  said  Mr.  Bradley,  of  Kentucky, 
"  coming  from  the  Democratic  party,  might  come  with  some  force, 
but  from  the  great  Republican  party,  which  professes  love  and 
equality  for  all  the  States,  I  must  admit  my  astonishment.  It  is  well 
known  to  this  Convention  that  in  the  South  to-day  votes  are  stifled  by 
frauds  and  force,  and  yet  you  are  asked  to  take  this  basis  which  has 
been  laid  down  by  Democratic  fraud  and  force,  and  make  it  the  basis 
of  Republican  representation."  Nothing  came  of  this  attempt  to  re- 
strict Southern  representation,  for  after  the  discussion  the  motion  to 


438  HISTORY   OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

adopt  the  minority  report,  which  was  the  occasion  of  it,  was  with- 
drawn, and  that  was  the  end  of  the  matter.  Then  the  Platform  was 
reported  from  the  Committee  on  Resolutions  and  adopted  without  dis- 
sent. 

"  Very  strong  and  very  Blainey,"  was  one  of  the  comments  with 
which  the  Platform  was  received.  It  was  what  in  those  days  was  called 
a  "  new  departure,"  in  form  if  not  in  substance.  It  took  ground  in 
favor  of  Protection,  and  pledged  the  party  to  correct  the  inequalities 
of  the  Tariff;  it  favored  a  readjustment  of  the  duties  on  foreign  wool; 
it  recommended  an  effort  to  unite  all  commercial  nations  in  the  estab- 
lishment of  an  international  standard  to  fix  for  all  the  relative  value 
of  gold  and  silver  coinage;  it  asserted  the  necessity  of  legislation  to 
prevent  unjust  discrimination  and  excessive  charges  for  transpor- 
tation; and  pronounced  in  favor  of  a  bureau  of  labor;  the  enforcement 
of  the  eight-hour  law;  appropriations  from  the  national  revenues  for 
general  education  wherever  needed;  extension  of  the  system  of  civil- 
service  reform,  and  the  settlement  of  international  questions  by  arbi- 
tration. It  demanded  the  restoration  of  the  navy  to  the  old-time 
strength  and  efficiency,  and  aimed  a  blow  at  polygamy  and  the  politi- 
cal power  of  the  so-called  Mormon  church.  The  Union  was  described 
as  a  nation,  not  a  mere  confederacy  of  States;  and  the  fraud  and 
violence  practiced  by  the  Democratic  party  in  the  South  were  sternly 
denounced.  It  was  a  Platform  remarkable  for  length,  breadth,  and 
thickness,  but,  while  it  touched  on  many  questions,  it  was  not  very 
clear  or  explicit  on  any  of  the  issues  that  were  beginning  to  force 
themselves  upon  the  country. 

After  the  adoption  of  the  Platform  the  Convention  adjourned  until 
evening,  when  the  nominating  speeches  were  made.  The  first  candi- 
date named  was  General  Joseph  R.  Hawley,  of  Connecticut,  the  nom- 
inating speech  being  made  by  Augustus  Brandagee.  Senator  Cullom 
nominated  General  John  A.  Logan.  When  Maine  was  reached  in  the 
call  of  the  States  there  was  a  clear,  loud,  wild  burst  of  applause  that 
seemed  to  come  from  every  throat  in  the  great  building.  In  an  in- 
stant delegates  and  spectators  were  on  their  feet.  Staid  old  politi- 
cians on  the  platform,  venerable  Senators  and  Representatives  long 
tried  in  Congress;  new  delegates,  who  were  never  before  in  a  Na- 
tional Convention,  were  drawn  into  the  whirlpool  of  excitement  as 
straws  are  sucked  into  the  eddies  of  a  river.  Every  delegate,  save  a 
bare  patch  here  and  there  on  the  floor,  where  the  friends  of  Arthur 
and  of  Edmunds  sat,  mounted  his  chair  and  took  part  in  the  demon- 
stration. Men  put  their  hats  on  the  tops  of  canes  and  waved  them  high 
over  their  heads.  Women  tore  their  bright  fichus  and  laces  from 
around  their  snowy  necks,  and  leaning  far  forward  over  the  galleries, 


THE   CAMPAIGN    OF   1884.  439 

frantically  swung  them  to  and  fro  to  give  emphasis  to  their  shrill 
screams  of  joy.  Mr.  Henderson  vainly  pounded  his  gavel  for  order. 
Its  dull  beats  upon  the  hollow  desk  were  no  more  audible  to  the  wild 
crowd  in  the  hall  than  were  the  strains  of  the  band  in  the  rear  to  the 
cheering  spectators  on  the  platform.  The  applause  echoed  blocks 
away  along  the  streets  leading  to  the  Exposition  Building,  and  the 
engineers  of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad,  in  the  rear  of  the  hall, 
added  to  the  din  by  loud  shrieks  from  the  whistles  of  their  engines. 
At  last,  exhausted,  the  tumult  ceased,  not  on  the  instant,  but  by  de- 
grees, fitful  cheers  being  given  long  after  Judge  West  reached  the 
platform  and  was  escorted  to  his  seat. 

The  man  selected  to  present  Elaine's  name  to  the  Convention  was 
blind.  He  was  helped  to  the  platform  by  two  sturdy  young  men,  who 
carefully  guarded  his  progress  up  the  steep  steps  and  along  the  tor- 
tuous aisles  to  the  seat  provided  for  him  on  the  left  of  the  presiding 
officer's  chair.  His  silver  gray  hair  was  smoothly  brushed  away  from 
a  noble  forehead.  Time  had  implanted  deep  wrinkles  and  furrows 
around  the  sharp  features  of  an  intelligent  face.  Dressed  plainly  in 
black,  wearing  no  ornament  save  a  blue  Blaine  badge  on  the  lapel  of 
his  coat,  and  a  small  watchchain,  the  old  man  leaned  back  in  his 
armchair,  and  faced  the  surging  mob  as,  fhough  blind,  he  felt  him- 
self its  master.  For  the  last  time  the  applause  rolled  through  the 
hall  and  ended  in  a  wild  roar  as  the  Ohio  orator  rose  to  his  feet  and, 
lifting  his  right  hand  above  his  head,  by  gesture  compelled  silence. 
Ten  minutes  of  uproar  and  storm  were  followed  by  a  stillness  in 
which  a  wrhisper  could  be  heard  as  the  first  clear,  distinct,  sharp  tones 
of  the  speaker  rolled  through  the  building.  The  clean-cut  sentences, 
brilliant  delivery,  and  confident  manner  of  the  speaker  captivated  the 
crowd.  They  were  in  sympathy  with  him  from  the  start,  and  he  re- 
tained his  grasp  upon  their  feelings  to  the  finish.  After  Judge  West 
had  put  Mr.  Blaine  in  nomination  other  speeches  in  support  of  it  fol- 
lowed, Cassius  M.  Goodloe  speaking  for  the  South,  Thomas  C.  Platt 
for  New  York,  and  Galusha  A.  Grow  for  Pennsylvania. 

Arthur's  welcome  followed  hard  upon  the  enthusiasm  for  Blaine. 
When  New  York  was  called  it  was  like  match  to  powder,  like  the  re- 
flection of  light  from  a  turning  mirror.  Up  went  half  of  the  New 
York  delegation  with  a  shout;  up  went  the  Southern  States  by  squads 
and  platoons;  up  went  the  corporal's  guard  in  Pennsylvania.  The 
nominating  address  was  made  by  Martin  I.  Townsend,  of  New  York, 
but  the  speech  of  the  evening  for  President  Arthur  was  made  by  Con- 
gressman Bingham.  The  audience,  the  occasion,  the  enthusiasm  with 
which  the  air  was  tingling,  and  which  at  every  sentence  kindled  into 
cheers,  all  invited  him  to  give  his  best  in  voice  and  speech  and  man- 


440 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 


ner.  Three  Southern  speeches  followed:  Winston,  of  North  Caro- 
lina, florid  and  loud;  Lynch,  of  Mississippi,  plain  and  direct;  Pinch- 
back,  of  Louisiana,  adroit  and  clear.  It  only  remained  to  put  two 
more  candidates  in  nomination — John  Sherman,  of  Ohio,  and  Senator 
Edmunds,  of  Vermont.  The  principal  speech  for  Sherman  was  made 
by  Judge  Foraker,  and  Edmunds  was  nominated  by  ex-Governor 
Long,  of  Massachusetts,  the  nomination  being  seconded  by  George 
William  Curtis. 

All  that  was  to  follow  was  to  put  the  strength  of  the  candidates 
to  the  test  of  a  vote,  and  to  give  the  successful  competitor  a  running 
mate,  but  this  must  be  the  work  of  another  day.  Altogether  there 
were  four  ballots  on  June  6,  as  follows: 


FIRST 

SECOND 

THIRD 

FOURTH 

James  G.  Blaine,  Maine..                         

334^ 

349 

375 

541 

278 

276 

274 

207 

George  F   Edmunds,  Vermont  

93 

85 

69 

41 

John  A.  Logan,  Illinois  

63>£ 

61 

53 

7 

John  Sherman,  Ohio  

30 

28 

25 

Joseph  R.  Hawley,  Connecticut.  .   *    

13 

13 

13 

15 

Robert  T.  Lincoln,  Illinois  

4 

4 

8 

2 

William  T.  Sherman,  Missouri  

2 

2 

2 

On  the  first  ballot  the  votes  of  all  the  States  and  Territories  were 
divided,  except  those  of  California,  Colorado,  Iowa,  Maine,  Nevada, 
Oregon,  West  Virginia,  Arizona,  Dakota,  and  Washington,  which 
went  to  Blaine;  Georgia,  Idaho,  New  Mexico,  and  Wyoming,  which 
went  to  Arthur,  and  Khode  Island  and  Vermont,  which  went  to  Ed- 
munds. The  divided  vote  from  the  South  was,  Alabama:  Arthur 
17,  Blaine  1,  Logan  1;  Arkansas:  Blaine  8,  Arthur  4,  Edmunds  2; 
Florida:  Arthur  7,  Blaine  1;  Kentucky:  Arthur  16,  Blaine  51,  Logan 
2i,  Lincoln  1;  Louisiana:  Arthur  10,  Logan  2,  Blaine  3;  Mississippi: 
Arthur  17,  Blaine  1;  Missouri:  Arthur  10,  Logan  10,  Edmunds  6, 
Blaine  5;  North  Carolina:  Arthur  19,  Blaine  2,  Logan  1;  South  Caro- 
lina: Arthur  17,  Blaine  1;  Tennessee:  Arthur  16,  Blaine  7,  Logan  1; 
Texas:  Blaine  13,  Arthur  11,  Logan  2;  and  Virginia:  Arthur  21,  Blaine 
2,  Logan  1.  The  divided  New  England  States  were,  Massachusetts: 
Edmunds  25,  Arthur  2,  Blaine  1,  and  New  Hampshire:  Edmunds  4, 
Arthur  4.  New  York  voted:  Arthur  31,  Blaine  28,  Edmunds  12,  and 
Pennsylvania:  Blaine  47,  Arthur  11,  Edmunds  1,  Logan  1.  General 
Logan  was  unable  to  hold  his  own  State,  Illinois,  intact,  the  vote  be- 
ing: Logan  40,  Blaine  3,  Arthur  1,  and  Blaine  captured  21  of  the  Ohio 


THE   CAMPAIGN   OF   1884.  441 

votes,  leaving  only  25  for  John  Sherman.  In  the  West  and  North- 
west the  divided  States  other  than  those  already  mentioned  were, 
Indiana:  Elaine  18,  Arthur  9,  Sherman  2,  Edmunds  1;  Kansas:  Elaine 
12,  Arthur  4,  Logan  1,  Hawley  1;  Michigan:  Elaine  15,  Edmunds  7, 
Arthur  2;  Minnesota:  Elaine  7,  Edmunds  6,  Arthur  1;  Nebraska: 
Elaine  10,  Arthur  6,  Edmunds  6.  On  the  second  ballot  Elaine's  gains 
were  scattered  between  nine  States,  and  comprised  3  votes  from  Ar- 
kansas, 2  each  from  Louisiana,  Maryland,  Missouri,  and  Ohio,  and  1 
each  from  Alabama,  Kansas,  North  Carolina,  and  Wisconsin.  On  the 
third  ballot  Elaine's  most  significant  gains  were  5  votes  from  Mis- 
souri, 3  each  from  Michigan  and  Pennsylvania,  and  2  each  from 
Nebraska,  New  Jersey,  Ohio,  and  Virginia.  Arthur  had  lost  two 
votes  on  the  second,  and  two  more  on  the  third  ballot.  On  the  last 
ballot  Elaine  received  intact  the  votes  of  Indiana,  Kansas,  Michigan, 
Minnesota,  Missouri,  Ohio,  and  Wisconsin,  in  addition  to  the  solid 
votes  cast  for  him  on  previous  ballots.  Illinois  gave  him  34  of 
Logan's  votes,  but  his  gain  in  Massachusetts  was  only  2  votes,  while 
Arthur  gained  4.  From  the  beginning  Elaine's  nomination  was  a 
foregone  conclusion,  but  Arthur's  strength  at  the  finish  was  a  splen- 
did testimonial  to  the  efficiency  and  success  of  his  administration. 

Twice  defeated  for  the  nomination,  once  in  1876  by  the  opposition 
of  New  England,  Ohio,  and  the  South,  and  again  in  1880  by  the  deter- 
mined movement  in  behalf  of  General  Grant  for  a  third  term,  James 
G.  Elaine  was  at. last  the  choice  of  the  Republican  party  for  President 
of  the  United  States.  While  the  balloting  was  in  progress  Mr.  Elaine 
was  swinging  in  a  hammock  under  a  spreading  apple  tree  at  his  Au- 
gusta home.  A  group  of  ladies  surrounded  him.  "  I  did  not  expect  a 
definite  result  so  soon,"  he  said,  when  the  news  of  the  final  ballot  was 
received.  A  few  minutes  later  the  old  cannon  on  the  wharf  at  Hallo- 
well,  said  to  have  been  used  on  the  "  Boxer  "  in  her  fight  with  the 
"  Enterprise,"  boomed  the  first  gun  for  Elaine  in  the  State  of  Maine 
after  his  nomination.  Then  the  church  bells  in  Augusta  began  to 
ring,  and  this  was  followed  by  the  shrieks  of  steam  whistles  from  the 
factories  and  the  steamers  on  the  river.  Hallowell  and  Gardiner, 
two  and  six  miles  away,  joined  in  the  noisy  demonstration.  The  lawn 
of  the  Elaine  mansion  was  soon  filled  by  a  throng  of  the  candidate's  ju- 
bilant townsmen,  and  in  the  evening  there  was  a  procession  and  a 
speech  by  Mr.  Elaine  from  his  own  doorway.  "  My  friends  and  my 
neighbors."  he  said,  "  I  thank  you  most  sincerely  for  the  honor  of  this 
call.  There  is  no  spot  in  the  world  where  good  news  comes  to  me  so 
gratefully  as  here  at  my  own  home,  among  the  people  with  whom  I 
have  been  on  terms  of  friendship  and  intimacy  for  more  than  thirty 
years — people  whom  I  know  and  who  know  me.  Thanking  you  again 
for  the  heartiness  of  the  compliment,  I  bid  you  good-night." 


442 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 


After  Mr.  Elaine's  nomination  the  Convention  adjourned  until 
evening,  and  it  was  while  the  people  of  Augusta  were  listening  to  the 
brief  speech  from  the  doorway  that  General  John  A.  Logan  was  nom- 
inated for  Vice-President.  An  attempt  was  made  to  make  the  nomi- 
nation by  acclamation,  but  it  was  abandoned.  Recourse  was  then  had 
to  a  call  of  the  States,  General  Logan  receiving  779  votes,  to  6  for 
Walter  Q.  Gresham,  of  Indiana,  and  1  for  J.  B.  Foraker,  of  Ohio. 
These  seven  votes  withheld  from  Logan  were  all  from  New  York.  Lo- 
gan was  popular  with  the  masses,  and  especially  with  the  veterans  of 
the  civil  war.  He  had,  however,  the  reputation  of  being  a  chronic 
growler.  "  Morton  will  come  to  me  with  two  requests,"  President 

Grant  once  said,  compar- 
ing Senator  Morton,  of 
Indiana,  with  General 
Logan.  "  If  I  grant  one 
of  them  he  will  go  away 
boasting  of  his  influence 
with  the  administration. 
Logan  will  co-me  with 
thirteen  requests.  If  I 
grant  twelve  of  them  he 
will  go  away  swearing  his 
wishes  are  never  complied 
with."  As  one  of  the 
champions  of  Grant's 
nomination  in  1880,  his 
candidature  added 
strength  to  the  ticket,  but 
it  was  a  ticket  that,  for 
the  first  time  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  Republican  party  after  1860,  was"  foredoomed  to  defeat. 
The  Democratic  National  Convention  met  in  the  Exposition  build- 
ing in  Chicago  on  July  8.  The  Convention  was  called  to  order  by 
William  H.  Barnum,  of  Connecticut,  the  Chairman  of  the  National 
Committee,  and  Richard  B.  Hubbard,  of  Texas,  was  made  temporary 
President.  As  soon  as  the  temporary  organization  was  effected  the 
Tammany  members  of  the  New  York  delegation  made  an  attempt  to 
break  down  the  unit  rule,  as  had  been  done  in  the  Republican  National 
Convention  four  years  before.  Grover  Cleveland's  course  as  Gov- 
ernor was  highly  displeasing  to  Tammany,  and  that  powerful  organi- 
zation was  bitterly  opposed  to  his  nomination.  The  New  York  Con- 
vention, while  not  instructing  the  delegation  to  support  Cleveland,  di- 
rected it  to  vote  as  a  unit.  Unless  this  rule  was  abrogated  Tammanv 


JOHN    A.    LOGAN. 


THE   CAMPAIGN   OF   1884.  443 

would  be  powerless  to  resist  Ms  nomination.  The  attempt  failed. 
On  the  second  day  of  the  Convention  William  F.  Vilas,  of  Wiscon- 
sin, was  made  its  permanent  President.  Without  waiting  for  the  re- 
port of  the  Committee  on  Resolutions,  it  was  determined  to  proceed 
with  a  call  of  the  States  for  the  nomination  of  candidates  for  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  and  the  names  of  Allen  G.  Thurman,  of 
Ohio;  Thomas  F.  Bayard,  of  Delaware;  Joseph  E.  McDonald,  of  In- 
diana; John  G.  Carlisle,  of  Kentucky;  Samuel  J.  Randall,,  of  Penn- 
sylvania, and  Grover  Cleveland,  of  New  York,  were  formally  pre- 
sented. The  nominating  speeches  consumed  the  rest  of  the  day, 
and  the  morning  session  of  the  third  day.  At  the  evening  session  the 
Platform  was  reported,  and  adopted,  after  which  the  first  ballot 
was  taken,  writh  the  following  result:  Cleveland,  392;  Bayard,  170; 
Thurman,  88;  Randall,  78;  McDonald,  56;  Carlisle,  27;  Flower,  4; 
Hoadly,  3;  Hendricks,  1;  Tilden,  1.  Necessary  to  a  choice  under  the 
two-thirds  rule,  547.  An  adjournment  was  then  ordered  by  a  very 
close  vote.  When  the  Convention  again  met  on  Friday  morning  the. 
Indiana  delegation  withdrew  the  name  of  Mr.  McDonald  with  the 
avowed  purpose  of  substituting  Thomas  A.  Hendricks.  This  was 
done  with  the  hope  of  stampeding  the  Convention  for  Hendricks,  but 
as  the  voting  proceeded  it  became  apparent  that  Cleveland's  nomina- 
tion could  not  be  prevented.  The  result  of  the  second  ballot  was  de- 
clared as  follows:  Cleveland,  683;  Bayard,  81i;  Hendricks,  45^;  Thur- 
man, 4;  Randall,  4;  McDonald,  4.  At  the  evening  session  Thomas  A. 
Hendricks  was  nominated  for  Vice-President  by  acclamation.  Thus 
was  completed  the  first  successful  Democratic  ticket  since  1856. 

The  campaign  that  ensued  was  one  of  extraordinary  bitterness. 
Mr.  Blaine  was  assailed  as  a  corrupt  politician,  and  Mr.  Cleveland 
was  accused  of  the  paternity  of  an  illegitimate  child,  which  it  was  as- 
serted he  had  failed  to  support.  Cleveland  met  the  accusations  af- 
fecting him  with  the  blunt  adjuration  to  his  friends,  "  Tell  the 
truth."  This  phrase,  ooldly  enough,  became  a  Democratic  battlecry 
of  the  canvass,  and  was  regarded  as  "  in  striking  contrast  with  the  at- 
titude of  his  opponent  on  questions  deeply  affecting  his  personal  in- 
tegrity." Its  singular  effrontery  was  looked  upon  by  his  supporters 
as  a  proof  of  manliness  and  merit.  "  There  was  no  whining  about  his 
private  business,"  said  Harper's  Weekly,  "  no  seizing  of  letters,  and 
after  a  menacing  pressure  of  public  opinion,  a  theatrical  reading  of 
such  parts  as  he  chose,  and  with  his  own  comments;  there  was  no  des- 
perate equivocation  and  attempted  concealment.  '  Tell  the  truth  ' 
was  the  only  reply — a  reply  which  showed  a  man  honorably  unwilling 
to  receive  any  public  trust  under  false  pretenses." 

Mr.  Elaine's  letter  of  acceptance  was  a  comprehensive  and  states- 


444  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

manlike  discussion  of  public  questions  and  the  public  interests,  but 
the  attention  of  the  voters  was  diverted  from  the  consideration  of 
questions  affecting  our  foreign  and  domestic  commerce,  the  tariff  and 
the  currency,  to  the  issues  suited  to  a  campaign  of  scandal.  Mr. 
Cleveland  made  a  few  speeches,  but  they  attracted  little  attention, 
and  during  the  greater  part  of  the  campaign  he  remained  quietly  at 
Albany  performing  his  duties  as  Governor  of  New  York.  He  made 
a  visit  to  his  former  home,  Buffalo,  where  he  was  received  with  some 
show  of  enthusiasm,  and  he  addressed  a  "  business  meeting  "  in  New 
York  City,  and  spoke  at  Newark,  N.  J.,  and  Bridgeport,  Conn.  Mr. 
Blaine  made  a  more  extended  campaign  tour  and  was  received  by  vast 
outpourings  of  the  people.  The  difference  in  the  reception  of  the 
two  men  was  to  Democratic  writers  a  sign  of  culpability  in  Blaine,  of 
Roman  virtue  in  Cleveland.  "  In  contrast  with  his  campaign  and  his 
personal  conduct,"  says  one  of  Mr.  Cleveland's  biographers,  "  was  the 
wild  pageantry  with  which  Blaine  was  conducted  over  the  country, 
culminating  in  a  series  of  ovations,  dinners,  and  receptions  in  New 
York  City.  One  of  these,  a  select  assemblage  of  millionaires  to  do 
honor  to  the  Republican  candidate,  created  a  strong  feeling  that  his 
election  was  chiefly  desired  by  the  plutocrats  and  monopolists;  at  an- 
other a  misfit  preacher  named  Burchard  dropped  an  ill-timed  remark, 
aspersing  the  Democracy  as  the  party  of  '  Rum,  Romanism,  and  Re- 
bellion,' and  to  these  two  incidents  many  of  Mr.  Elaine's  admirers  lay 
the  accountability  for  the  slender  adverse  plurality  which  lost  to  him 
New  York  and  the  Presidency." 

The  cause  of  Mr.  Elaine's  defeat  lay  deeper  than  the  inapt  speech 
of  the  "  misfit  preacher  named  Burchard,"  or  the  dinners  attended 
by  a  few  men  who  had  more  money  than  the  average  man  thinks  any 
man  ought  to  have.  The  campaign  of  1884  was  the  beginning  of  a 
long  epoch  of  discontent,  in  which  eminent  public  service  and  a  con- 
spicuous public  career  were  elements  of  weakness  rather  than  of 
strength.  Mr.  Blaine  had  made  many  enemies,  who  rejected  him  as 
unworthy  of  their  support  because  he  had  been  a  successful  politi- 
cian. Among  those  who  had  been  prominent  Republicans  who  turned 
against  him  were  George  William  Curtis  and  the  Rev.  Henry  Ward 
Beecher,  of  New  York;  Carl  Schurz,  Secretary  of  the  Interior  under 
President  Hayes;  Colonel  Charles  R.  Codman,  Colonel  Thomas  Went- 
worth  Higginson,  Henry  L.  Pierce,  and  the  Rev.  James  Freeman 
Clarke,  of  Massachusetts;  ex-Senator  Wadleigh,  of  New  Hampshire; 
and  ex-Governors  Chamberlain,  of  South  Carolina;  Blair,  of  Michigan, 
and  Pound,  of  Wisconsin.  These  and  others  like  them  were  the  original 
"  Mugwumps,"  exerting  a  powerful  influence  against  the  party  they 
had  long  served.  Their  influence  alone  was  sufficient  to  account  for 


THE   CAMPAIGN    OF   1884.  445 

Mr.  Elaine's  defeat  by  the  slender  adverse  plurality  that  lost  him 
New  York  and  the  Presidency. 

Indiana  had  followed  the  example  of  Pennsylvania,  and  ceased  to 
be  an  October  State,  but  in  Ohio  the  October  elections  for  State  of- 
ficers were  carried  by  the  Republicans.  This  was  considered  a  fair 
promise  of  Mr.  Elaine's  election  in  November,  but  it  was  in  reality 
the  Prohibition  vote  in  the  close  States  that  decided  the  result.  The 
Prohibitionists  had  become  the  Prohibition-Home-Protection  party, 
and  nominated  John  P.  St.  John,  of  Kansas,  for  President,  and  Will- 
iam Daniel,  of  Maryland,  for  Vice-President.  The  Platform  declared 
in  favor  of  administrative  reform,  the  abolition  of  all  sinecures  and 
useless  offices,  and  election  by  the  people  instead  of  appointment  by 
the  President.  This  afforded  an  excuse  for  many  dissatisfied  Re- 
publicans to  vote  for  St.  John,  and  while  General  Butler's  candida- 
ture was  prejudicial  to  both  the  old  parties,  the  Prohibition  vote  was 
almost  wholly  Republican.  St.  John's  vote  deprived  Mr.  Elaine  of  the 
Electoral  votes  of  Connecticut,  New  Jersey,  and  New  York,  and  with 
Butler's  Republican  support  of  Indiana  also.  The  vote  of  Cleveland 
and  Hendricks  in  the  Electoral  College  was  219  to  182  for  Elaine  and 
Logan.  It  will  thus  be  seen  that  the  result  in  New  York  was  decisive, 
Mr.  Cleveland  receiving  the  36  Electoral  votes  of  the  State  on  a 
plurality  of  only  1,149,  while  falling  40,811  below  a  majority,  St. 
John's  vote  being  25,016,  and  Butler's  16,944. 

"  The  managers  of  the  defeated  party,"  says  one  of  Mr.  Cleveland's 
biographers,  "  in  their  intense  disappointment,  vented  their  rage 
partly  upon  the  Prohibitionists,  and  to  some  degree  upon  the  luck- 
less speech  of  Rev.  Dr.  Burchard;  their  deepest  resentment,  however, 
was  exhibited  against  the  so-called  *  Mugwumps,'  for  whom  no  terms 
of  reproach  were  deemed  too  violent.  The  Independent  Republicans, 
who  had  vainly  protested  against  Elaine's  nomination,  and  had  con- 
tributed to  his  defeat  at  the  polls,  received  the  abuse  now  heaped 
upon  them  with  great  complacency,  and  hopefully  looked  to  the  new 
administration  for  their  vindication." 

For  the  first  time  in  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century  the  Republican 
party  was  defeated  in  a  Presidential  election.  For  the  first  time  in 
nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century  a  Democratic  President  had  been  chosen. 
It  was  not  so  much  a  Democratic  triumph  as  the  victory  of  Repub- 
lican discontent  over  the  candidates  of  the  Republican  party.  The 
Mugwumps  were  not  slow  to  claim  the  achievement  as  theirs,  and  they 
were  loud  in  proclaiming  that  the  victory  should  be  interpreted  as 
the  triumph  of  the  better  elements  of  all  parties.  It  was  indeed  the 
victory  of  discontent,  and  as  such  defeat  was  to  be  followed  almost 
inevitably  by  reaction  and  recovery. 


IV. 

PRESIDENT  CLEVELAND'S  ADMINISTRATION. 

An  Inexperienced  Executive — The  Cabinet — The  Forty-ninth  Con- 
gress— President  Cleveland's  Vetoes — Interstate  Commerce 
Commission — The  White  House  Wedding — An  Accomplished 
"  Master  of  Ceremonies  "  —  Fiftieth  Congress — Tariff  Revision- 
President  Cleveland's  Tariff  Message — Effect  of  the  Message— 
The  Mills  Tariff  Bill — Protection  or  Free  Trade  Becomes  the 
Dominating  Issue. 


ROVER  CLEVELAND  entered  upon  the  Presidency,  March 
4,  1885,  with  less  acquaintance  with  men  and  affairs  than 
any  of  his  predecessors.  James  K.  Polk  had  served  in 
Congress  and  had  been  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Represen- 
tatives. Zachary  Taylor  had  been  in  the  military  service,  and  con- 
sequently in  affiliation  with  civil  administration  all  his  life.  Frank- 
lin Pierce  had  been  both  a  Representative  and  a  Senator  in  Congress. 
Abraham  Lincoln  was  a  recognized  leader  in  the  great  movement 
that  had  made  him  the  first  Republican  President  of  the  United 
States.  But  Mr.  Cleveland  had  risen,  in  the  brief  period  of  three 
years,  from  the  Mayoralty  of  a  small  inland  city,  through  the  Govern- 
orship of  New  York,  to  the  highest  office  in  the  gift  of  the  American 
people.  He  was  entirely  without  experience  in  Federal  administra- 
tion. He  knew  personally  almost  none  of  the  public  men  with  whom 
he  would  be  required  to  deal.  Even  his  Cabinet  must  be  composed  of 
men  most  of  whom  he  had  never  met.  In  the  selection  of  his  official 
advisers  the  President-elect  followed  the  traditions  of  his  predeces- 
sors. The  State  Department  was  given  to  his  most  powerful  com- 
petitor for  the  nomination  at  Chicago — Thomas  F.  Bayard,  of  Dela- 
ware. At  the  head  of  the  Treasury  he  placed  Daniel  Manning,  the 
editor  of  the  Argus  at  Albany,  his  chief  political  sponsor.  Another 
New  Yorker,  then  not  widely  known,  William  C.  Whitney,  was  made 
Secretary  of  the  Navy.  Even  less  known  than  the  two  New  York 
Cabinet  selections  was  the  new  Secretary  of  War,  William  C.  Endi- 
cott,  of  Massachusetts.  William  F.  Vilas,  wrho  had  presided  over  the 
Chicago  Convention,  was  made  Postmaster-General.  The  remaining 


PRESIDENT   CLEVELAND'S   ADMINISTRATION.  447 

places  went  to  the  u  Solid  South,"  L.  Q.  C.  Lamar,  of  Mississippi,  being 
made  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  and  Augustus  H.  Garland,  of  Arkan- 
sas, Attorney-General.  It  was  not  a  strong  Cabinet,  either  intellect- 
ually or  politically,  but  it  was  received  with  as  much  satisfaction  as 
Avould  have  been  accorded  to  a  stronger  aggregation  of  Democratic 
politicians. 

During  the  first  year  of  his  administration  President  Cleveland  was 
subjected  to  considerable  criticism  in  his  own  party  for  his  alleged 
rigid  adherence  to  the  reform  in  the  Civil  Service.  He  did  not  make 
removals  fast  enough  to  suit  many  of  his  supporters,  who  were  eager 
for  the  offices,  while  there  was  indignation  among  Republicans  at 
the  energy  with  which  the  "  ax  "  was  wielded,  especially  in  the 
Postmaster-General's  Department.  So  marked  was  this  feeling  that 
early  in  the  first  session  of  the  49th  Congress  the  Senate, 
under  the  lead  of  Mr.  Edmunds,  of  Vermont,  set  up  the  claim,  hither- 
to never  advanced,  that  that  body  was  entitled  to  the  "  papers  "  upon 
which  removals  and  appointments  had  been  made.  The  President 
refused  to  comply  with  this  request,  holding  that  such  documents 
affected  considerations  private  to  himself.  Later  the  Senate  re- 
ceded from  its  position  by  confirming  the  men  appointed  to  the  of- 
fices in  question. 

The  49th  Congress,  like  its  predecessor,  was  Republican  in  the 
Senate  and  Democratic  in  the  House  of  Representatives.  The  new 
Republican  Senators  were  Leland  Stanford,  of  California;  Henry  W. 
Blair,  of  New  Hampshire;  William  M.  Evarts,  of  New  York,  and  John 
C.  Spooner,  of  Wisconsin.  The  Democrats  new  to  the  Senate  were 
James  F.  Berry  and  James  K.  Jones,  of  Arkansas;  George  Hearst,  of 
California;  George  Gray,  of  Delaware;  Joseph  C.  S.  Blackburn,  of 
Kentucky;  Edward  C.  Walthall,  of  Mississippi;  Henry  B.  Payne,  of 
Ohio,  and  W.  C.  Whitthorne,  of  Tennessee.  Gray  succeeded  Secre- 
tary of  State  Bayard,  Walthall  Secretary  of  the  Interior  Lamar,  and 
Berry  Attorney-General  Garland.  Mr.  Carlisle  was  again  elected 
Speaker  of  the  House,  the  Democrats  having  a  membership  of  184 
to  139  Republicans.  The  Greenback-Labor  party  had  only  two  Rep- 
resentatives. Among  the  Republican  additions  to  the  House  were 
Joseph  McKenna,  of  California;  Jacob  H.  Gallinger,  of  New  Hamp- 
shire; James  Buchanan,  of  New  Jersey;  Ira  Davenport,  of  New  York; 
Benjamin  Butterworth,  of  Ohio;  and  John  A.  Hiestand  and  Edwin 
S.  Osborne,  of  Pennsylvania.  Kentucky  sent  one  new  Republican 
member,  William  H.  Wadsworth;  Missouri  two,  William  Warner  and 
William  H.  Wade,  and  Tennessee  one,  Zachary  Taylor.  It  was  a  busi- 
ness Congress,  but  succeeded  in  accomplishing  little  practical  legisla- 
tion. In  history  the  49th  Congress  is  remarkable  only  for  the  num- 


448 


HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 


ber  of   its  measures  vetoed  by  the  President.     The  whole  account 
stands  thus: 


FIRST 
SESSION 

SECOND 
SESSION 

TOTAL 

1,095 

554 

1,649 

Approved  by  the  President  

814 

471 

1,285 

Failed  of  approval  

281 

83 

364 

115 

30 

145 

Became  laws  without  approval  

157 

7 

167 

Unsigned   at  time  of  adjournment  ("  pocketed  ")  

9 

46 

55 

281 

83 

364 

A  majority  of  these  comprised  private  pension  bills,  of  which  the 
summarv  is  as  follows: 


FIRST 
SESSION 

SECOND 
SESSION 

TOTAL 

Bills  passed  

747 

230 

977 

Bills  approved    .    .       

491 

186 

677 

Failed  of  approval  

256 

44 

300 

Became  laws  without  approval  by  lapse  of  time  

154 

2 

156 

Vetoed  

101 

22 

123 

Unsigned  at  time  of  adjournment  ("pocketed")  ...... 

1 

20 

21 

256 

44 

300 

During  the  second  session  of  the  49th  Congress  a  bill  was 
passed  creating  an  Interstate  Commerce  Commission,  and  granting 
it  certain  powers  to  prohibit  discrimination  in  rates  of  carrying  of 
passengers  and  freight.  The  bill  was  signed  by  the  President,  and  a 
Commission  appointed  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  its  provisions  into 
effect.  Of  this  Commission  Thomas  M.  Cooley,  of  Michigan,  one  of 
the  ablest  jurists  in  the  country,  was  elected  Chairman.  The  law  was 
accepted  by  the  people  and  the  railroads  with  good  results. 

It  is  pleasant  to  turn  from  the  public  to  the  domestic  features  of 
the  President's  life.  "  Up  to  this  time  Mr.  Cleveland,"  says  one  of  his 
many  biographers,  "  was  a  bachelor;  only  one  other  President  of  the 
United  States  had  been  in  the  enjoyment  of  single  blessedness  when 
he  entered  the  White  House,  James  Buchanan,  the  immediate  prede- 
cessor of  Abraham  Lincoln.  But  Mr.  Cleveland  was  about  to  join  his 


PRESIDENT   CLEVELAND'S   ADMINISTRATION.  449 

fortunes  with  one  of  the  sweetest  young  ladies  America  has  ever 
produced.  A  good  judge  of  men,  the  President  proved  by  his  choice 
to  be  an  equally  good  judge  of  women.  Miss  Frances  Folsom,  the 
daughter  of  the  President's  old  law  partner,  Oscar  Folsom  (who  un- 
fortunately was  killed  in  a  runaway  accident  in  1875),  was  the 
young  lady  whom  the  President  was  about  to  honor  with  his  hand, 
his  heart  being  already  in  her  possession.  Frances,  or  "  Frank  "  Fol- 
som, as  she  was  called,  was  born  in  Buffalo,  N.  Y.,  July  21, 18G4.  She 
was  well  educated  and,  by  foreign  travel,  had  acquired  such  grace  and 
self-possession  as  is  rarely  seen  in  so  young  a  person.  She  was  mar- 
ried in  the  White  House  to  President  Cleveland,  June  2,  1886.  The 
ceremony  took  place  in  the  east  parlor,  and  a  large  number  of  influ- 
ential persons  were  present,  besides  members  of  the  President's  fam- 
ily. After  the  marriage  ceremony  had  been  performed  by  Rev.  Dr. 
Sunderland,  Mr.  Dan  Lamont,  who  was  master  of  ceremonies,  invited 
the  guests,  in  the  President's  name,  to  a  sumptuous  collation,  after 
which  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Cleveland  went  to  Deer  Park,  Maryland,  from 
June  3  to  June  8,  when  they  returned  to  the  White  House.  Thurs- 
day, June  15,  they  held  their  first  State  reception,  and  Mrs.  Cleveland 
surprised  every  one  by  her  grace  and  beauty.  An  older  lady,  ac- 
customed to  State  functions  for  years,  could  not  have  surpassed  this 
young  American  woman  in  well-bred  ease  and  grace.  The  members 
of  the  Diplomatic  Corps,  accustomed  to  royal  receptions,  were  loud 
in  her  praises;  no  sovereign  of  Europe,  they  said,  could  surpass  her 
in  all  the  requirements  of  her  most  difficult  position.  Fair,  fresh, 
genuine,  in  figure  tall  ami  graceful,  with  soft,  brown  hair,  and  deep, 
kindling  eyes,  she  stood  before  all,  the  embodiment  of  all  that  is  best, 
loveliest,  and  sweetest  in  the  womanhood  of  our  nation.  This  be- 
ginning was  but  a  prelude  to  what  was  to  follow.  She  charmed  ev- 
erybody, and  for  a  time  even  cast  the  President  into  the  shade.  No 
lady  of  the  White  House,  not  even  Dolly  Madison,  was  ever  so  popu- 
lar. The  country  raved  about  her,  and  she  was  no  mere  bubble 
blown  by  the  popular  breath,  but  deserved  it  all;  walking  like  a  queen 
among  the  people,  ruling  all  hearts  by  the  supreme  regality  of  her 
exquisite  nature.  She  accompanied  the  President  to  public  assem- 
blies, and  on  his  many  trips  about  the  country,  and,  unmoved  by  the 
increase  of  flattery  and  the  fascination  of  universal  homage,  showed 
herself  one  of  the  womanliest  women  in  the  United  States — a  true 
helpmeet  to  her  great  husband." 

It  is  only  fair  to  Mr.  Lamont,  who  was  the  "  master  of  ceremonies  " 
at  the  President's  wedding,  that  his  characteristics  should  be  de- 
picted by  a  pen  friendly  to  Mr.  Cleveland.  "  First  among  all  coun- 
sellors of  the  President-elect,"  wrote  W.  U.  Hensel,  one  of  these 


450  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

friendly  writers,  "  then  and  ever  since,  was  and  has  been  Colonel 
Daniel  S.  Lamont,  who  was  soon  to  be  translated  from  the  position 
of  private  secretary  to  the  Governor  of  New  York  to  that  of  private 
secretary  to  the  President  of  the  United  States.  A  young  man 
trained  in  the  best  school  of  New  York  politics,  experienced  in  journ- 
alism, quick  to  perceive  the  value  and  character  of  men,  discreet  in 
speech,  and  efficient  in  commanding  the  largest  share  of  informa- 
tion from  any  visitor,  whether  he  has  an  ax  to  grind  or  comes  merely 
as  an  interested  observer  of  the  action  and  character  of  others,  he 
has  shown  himself  the  most  intelligent,  as  he  has  become  the  best 
known  of  all  the  men  who,  in  the  arduous  and  difficult  post  of  private 
secretary,  have  contributed  to  increase  the  interest  and  the  pleasure, 
or  to  lighten  the  labor  of  men  in  the  public  life  of  the  United  States." 

The  50th  Congress  was  like  its  immediate  predecessors  in  political 
composition  and  organization,  except  that  John  J.  Ingalls,  of  Kansas, 
had  succeeded  John  Sherman,  of  Ohio,  as  President  pro  tern  of  the 
Senate.  The  new  Republican  Senators  were  Francis  B.  Stockbridge, 
of  Michigan;  Cushman  K.  Davis,  of  Minnesota;  William  E.  Chandler, 
of  New  Hampshire;  Frank  Hiscock,  of  New  York,  and  Matthew  S. 
Quay,  of  Pennsylvania.  The  Democrats  were  David  Turpie,  of  In- 
diana; Rufus  Blodgett,  of  New  Jersey;  William  B.  Bate,  of  Tennessee; 
John  H.  Reagan,  of  Texas;  John  T.  Daniel,  of  Virginia,  and  Charles 
J.  Faulkner,  of  WTest  Virginia.  The  Senate  stood  39  Republicans  to 
37  Democrats,  and  the  House  169  Democrats  to  152  Republicans. 
There  were  2  Labor  and  2  Independent  Representatives. 

In  his  third  annual  message  in  December,  1887,  President  Cleveland 
devoted  himself  almost  wholly  to  the  discussion  of  tariff  revision. 
This  was  what  was  called  "  sounding  the  battle-cry."  As  this  mes- 
sage was  the  keynote  of  the  ensuing  Presidential  campaign  it  is 
worthy  of  reproduction  in  its  salient  features  in  this  place. 

"  Our  scheme  of  taxation,"  the  President  said,  after  complaining  of 
a  congested  national  treasury,  "  by  means  of  which  this  needless  sur- 
plus is  taken  from  the  people  and  put  into  the  public  treasury,  con- 
sists of  a  tariff  or  duty  levied  upon  importations  from  abroad,  and 
internal  revenue  taxes  levied  upon  the  consumption  of  tobacco  and 
spirituous  and  malt  liquors.  It  must  be  conceded  that  none  of  the 
things  subjected  to  internal  revenue  taxation  are,  strictly  speaking, 
necessaries;  there  appears  to  be  no  just  complaint  of  this  taxation  by 
the  consumers  of  these  articles,  and  there  seems  to  be  nothing  so  well 
able  to  bear  the  burden  without  hardship  to  any  portion  of  the  people. 
But  our  present  tariff  laws,  the  vicious,  inequitable,  and  illogical 
source  of  unnecessary  taxation,  ought  to  be  at  once  revised  and 
amended.  These  lawrs,  as  their  primary  and  plain  effect,  raise  the 


PRESIDENT   CLEVELAND'S   ADMINISTRATION.  451 

price  to  consumers  of  all  articles  imported  and  subject  to  duty,  by 
precisely  the  sum  paid  for  such  duties.  Thus  the  amount  of  the  duty 
measures  the  tax  paid  by  those  who  purchase  for  use  imported  ar- 
ticles. Many  of  these  things,  however,  are  raised  or  manufactured  in 
our  own  country,  and  the  duties  now  levied  upon  foreign  goods  and 
products  are  called  protection  to  these  home  manufactures,  because 
they  render  it  possible  for  those  of  our  people  who  are  manufac- 
turers to  make  these  taxed  articles  and  sell  them  for  a  price  equal  to 
that  demanded  for  the  imported  goods  that  have  paid  customs  duty. 
So  it  happens  that  while  comparatively  a  few  use  the  imported  ar- 
ticles, millions  of  our  people,  who  never  use  and  never  saw  any  of  the 
foreign  products,  purchase  and  use  things  of  the  same  kind  made  in 
this  country,  and  pay  therefor  nearly  or  quite  the  same  enhanced 
price  which  the  duty  adds  to  the  imported  articles.  Those  who  buy 
imports  pay  the  duty  charged  thereon  into  the  public  treasury;  but  the 
great  majority  of  our  citizens,  who  buy  domestic  articles  of  the  same 
class,  pay  a  sum  at  least  approximately  equal  to  the  duty  to  the 
home  manufacturer.  This  reference  to  the  operation  of  our  tariff 
laws  is  not  made  by  way  of  instruction,  but  in  order  that  we  may  be 
constantly  reminded  of  the  manner  in  which  they  impose  a  burden 
upon  those  who  consume  domestic  products,  as  well  as  those  who  con- 
sume imported  articles,  and  thus  create  a  tax  upon  all  our  people. 
It  is  not  proposed  to  entirely  relieve  the  country  of  this  taxation.  It 
must  be  extensively  continued  as  the  source  of  the  Government's  in- 
come; and  in  a  readjustment  of  our  tariff  the  interests  of  American 
labor  engaged  in  manufacture  should  be  carefully  considered,  as  well 
as  the  preservation  of  our  manufactures.  It  may  be  called  protection, 
or  by  any  other  name;  but  relief  from  the  hardships  and  dangers  of 
our  present  tariff  laws  should  be  devised  with  especial  precaution 
against  imperiling  the  existence  of  our  manufacturing  interests.  But 
this  existence  should  not  mean  a  condition  which,  without  regard  to 
the  public  welfare  or  a  national  e'xigency,  must  always  insure  the 
realization  of  immense  profits,  instead  of  moderately  profitable  re- 
turns. As  the  volume  and  diversity  of  our  national  activities  in- 
crease, new  recruits  are  added  to  those  wrho  desire  a  continuation  of 
the  advantages  which  they  conceive  the  present  system  of  tariff  taxa- 
tion directly  affords  them.  So  stubbornly  have  all  efforts  to  reform 
the  present  condition  been  resisted  by  those  of  our  fellow  citizens 
thus  engaged,  that  they  can  hardly  complain  of  the  suspicion,  enter- 
tained to  a  certain  extent,  that  there  exists  an  organized  combination 
all  along  the  line  to  maintain  their  advantage. 

"  We  are  in  the  midst  of  centennial  celebrations,  and  with  becom- 
ing pride  we  rejoice  in  American  skill  and  ingenuity,  in  American 


452  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

energy  and  enterprise,  and  in  the  wonderful  natural  advantages  and 
resources  developed  by  a  century's  national  growth.  Yet  when  an  at- 
tempt is  made  to  justify  a  scheme  which  permits  a  tax  to  be  laid 
upon  every  consumer  in  the  land  for  the  benefit  of  our  manufactures, 
quite  beyond  a  reasonable  demand  for  governmental  regard,  it  suits 
the  purpose  of  advocacy  to  call  our  manufactures  infant  industries, 
still  needing  the  highest  and  greatest  degree  of  favor  and  fostering 
care  that  can  be  wrung  from  Federal  legislation.  It  is  also  said  that 
the  increase  in  the  price  of  domestic  manufactures  resulting  from  the 
present  Tariff  is  necessary  in  order  that  higher  wages  may  be  paid  to 
our  workingmen  employed  in  manufactories  than  are  paid  for  what 
is  called  the  pauper  labor  of  Europe.  All  will  acknowledge  the  force 
of  an  argument  which  involves  the  welfare  and  liberal  compensation 
of  our  laboring  people.  Our  labor  is  honorable  in  the  eyes  of  every 
American  citizen,  and  as  it  lies  at  the  foundation  of  our  development 
and  progress,  it  is  entitled,  without  affectation  or  hypocrisy,  to  the 
utmost  regard.  The  standard  of  our  laborers'  life  should  not  be 
measured  by  that  of  any  other  country  less  favored,  and  they  are  en- 
titled to  their  full  of  all  our  advantages. 

"  By  the  last  census  it  is  made  to  appear  that  of  the  17,392,099 
of  our  population  engaged  in  all  kinds  of  industries,  7,670,493  are 
employed  in  agriculture,  4,074,238  in  professional  and  personal  serv- 
ice (2,934,876  of  whom  are  domestic  servants  and  laborers),  while 
1,810,256  are  employed  in  trade  and  transportation,  and  3,837,112  are 
classed  as  employed  in  manufacturing  and  mining.  For  present  pur- 
poses, however,  the  last  number  given  should  be  considerably  re- 
duced. Without  attempting  to  enumerate  all,  it  will  be  conceded 
that  there  should  be  deducted  from  those  which  it  includes  375,143 
carpenters  and  joiners,  285,401  milliners,  dressmakers,  and  seam- 
stresses, 172,726  blacksmiths,  133,756  tailors  and  tailoresses,  102,473 
masons,  76,241  butchers,  41,309  bakers,  22,083  plasterers,  and  4,891  en- 
gaged in  manufacturing  agricultural  implements,  amounting  in  the 
aggregate  to  1,214,023,  leaving  2,623,089  persons  employed  in  such 
manufacturing  industries  as  are  claimed  to  be  benefited  by  a  high 
Tariff.  To  these  the  appeal  is  made  to  save  their  employment  and 
maintain  their  wages  by  resisting  a  change.  There  should  be  no  dis- 
position to  answer  such  suggestions  by  the  allegation  that  they  are 
in  a  minority  among  those  who  labor,  and  therefore  should  forego 
an  advantage,  in  the  interest  of  low  prices  for  the  majority;  their 
compensation,  as  it  may  be  affected  by  the  operation  of  tariff  laws, 
should  at  all  times  be  scrupulously  kept  in  view;  and  yet,  with  slight 
reflection,  they  will  not  overlook  the  fact  that  they  are  consumers 
with  the  rest;  and  they,  too,  have  their  own  wants  and  those  of  their 


PRESIDENT   CLEVELAND'S   ADMINISTRATION.  453 

families  to  supply  from  their  earnings,  and  that  the  price  of  the 
necessaries  of  life,  as  well  as  the  amount  of  their  wages,  will  regulate 
the  measure  of  their  welfare  and  comfort.  But  the  reduction  of  taxa- 
tion demanded  should  be  so  measured  as  not  to  necessitate  or  justify 
either  the  loss  of  employment  by  the  working  man  or  the  lessening 
of  his  wages;  and  the  profits  still  remaining  to  the  manufacturer, 
after  a  necessary  readjustment,  should  furnish  no  excuse  for  the 
sacrifice  of  the  interests  of  his  employees,  either  in  their  opportunity 
to  work,  or  in  the  diminution  of  their  compensation.  Nor  can  the 
worker  in  manufactories  fail  to  understand  that  while  a  high  tariff  is 
claimed  to  be  necessary  to  allow  the  payment  of  remunerative  wages, 
it  certainly  results  in  a  very  large  increase  in  the  price  of  nearly  all 
sorts  of  manufactures,  which,  in  almost  countless  form,  he  needs  for 
the  use  of  himself  and  his  family.  He  receives  at  the  desk  of  his  em- 
ployer his  wages  and  perhaps  before  he  reaches  his  home  is  obliged, 
in  a  purchase  for  family  use  of  an  article  which  embraces  his  own 
labor,  to  return  in  the  payment  of  the  increase  in  price  which  the 
tariff  permits,  the  hard-earned  compensation  of  many  days  of  toil. 
The  farmer  and  the  agriculturist,  who  manufacture  nothing,  but  who 
pay  the  increased  price  which  the  tariff  imposes  upon  every  agricul- 
tural implement,  upon  all  he  wears,  and  upon  all  he  uses  and  owns, 
except  the  increase  of  his  flocks  and  herds  and  such  things  as  his  hus- 
bandry produces  from  the  soil,  is  invited  to  aid  in  maintaining  the 
present  situation;  and  he  is  told  that  a  high  duty  on  imported  wrool  is 
necessary  for  the  bjenefit  of  those  who  have  sheep  to  shear,  in  order 
that  the  price  of  wool  may  be  increased.  They,  of  course,  are  not  re- 
minded that  the  farmer  who  has  no  sheep  is  by  this  scheme  obliged, 
in  his  purchase  of  clothing  and  woolen  goods,  to  pay  a  tribute  to  his 
fellow  farmer  as  well  as  to  the  manufacturer  and  merchant;  nor 
is  any  mention  made  of  the  fact  that  the  sheep  owners  themselves 
and  their  households  must  wear  clothing  and  use  other  articles  man- 
ufactured from  the  wool  they  sell  at  tariff  prices,  and  thus,  as  con- 
sumers, must  return  their  share  of  this  increased  price  to  the  trades- 
man. I  think  it  may  be  fairly  assumed  that  a  large  proportion  of 
the  sheep  owned  by  the  farmers  throughout  the  country  are  found  in 
small  flocks  numbering  from  twenty-five  to  fifty.  The  duty  on  the 
grade  of  imported  wool  which  these  sheep  yield  is  ten  cents  per  pound 
if  of  the  value  of  thirty  cents  or  less,  and  twelve  cents  if  of  the  value 
of  more  than  thirty  cents.  If  the  liberal  estimate  of  six  pounds  be  al- 
lowed for  each  fleece  the  duty  thereon  would  be  sixty  or  seventy-two 
cents,  and  this  may  be  taken  as  the  utmost  enhancement  of  its  price 
to  the  farmer  by  reason  of  this  duty.  Eighteen  dollars  would  thus 
represent  the  increased  price  of  the  wool  from  twenty-five  sheep,  and 


454  HISTORY   OF  THE   REPUBLICAN    PARTY. 

thirty-six  dollars  that  from  the  wool  of  fifty  sheep;  and  at  present 
values  this  addition  would  amount  to  about  one-third  of  its  price. 
If  upon  its  sale  the  farmer  receives  this  or  a  less  tariff  profit,  the  wool 
leaves  his  hands  charged  with  precisely  that  sum,  which  in  all  its 
changes  will  adhere  to  it,  until  it  reaches  the  consumer.  When  man- 
ufactured into  cloth  and  other  goods  and  material  for  use,  its  cost 
is  not  only  increased  to  the  extent  of  the  farmer's  tariff  profit,  but  a 
further  sum  has  been  added  for  the  benefit  of  the  manufacturer,  under 
the  operation  of  other  tariff  laws.  In  the  meantime  the  day  arrives 
when  the  farmer  finds  it  necessary^  to  purchase  woolen  goods  and  ma- 
terial to  clothe  himself  and  family  for  the  winter.  When  he  faces 
the  tradesman  for  that  purpose  he  discovers  that  he  is  obliged  not 
only  to  return,  in  the  way  of  increased  prices,  his  tariff  profit  on  the 
wool  he  sold,  and  which  then,  perhaps,  lies  before  him  in  manufac- 
tured form,  but  that  he  must  add  a  considerable  sum  thereto  to  meet 
a  further  increase  in  cost  caused  by  a  tariff  duty  on  the  manufacture. 
Thus,  in  the  end,  he  is  aroused  to  the  fact  that  he  has  paid  upon  a 
moderate  purchase,  as  a  result  of  the  tariff  scheme,  which,  when  he 
sold  his  wool  seemed  so  profitable,  an  increase  in  price  more  than 
sufficient  to  sweep  away  all  the  tariff  profit  he  received  upon  the  wool 
he  produced  and  sold.  When  the  number  of  farmers  engaged  in  wool- 
raising  is  compared  with  all  the  farmers  in  the  country,  and  the  small 
proportion  they  bear  to  our  population  is  considered;  when  it  is  made 
apparent  that,  in  the  case  of  a  large  part  of  those  who  own  sheep,  the 
benefit  of  the  present  tariff  on  wool  is  illusory;  and,  above  all,  when  it 
must  be  conceded  that  the  increase  of  the  cost  of  living  caused  by 
such  tariff  becomes  a  burden  upon  those  with  moderate  means  and 
the  poor,  the  employed  and  the  unemployed,  the  sick  and  the  well, 
and  the  young  and  old,  and  that  it  constitutes  a  tax  which,  with  re- 
lentless grasp,  is  fastened  upon  the  clothing  of  every  man,  woman, 
and  child  in  the  land,  reasons  are  suggested  why  the  removal  or  re- 
duction of  this  duty  should  be  included  in  a  revision  of  our  tariff  laws. 
"  In  speaking  of  the  increased  cost  to  the  consumer  of  our  home 
manufactures,  resulting  from  a  duty  laid  upon  imported  articles  of  the 
same  description,  the  fact  is  not  overlooked  that  competition  among 
our  domestic  producers  sometimes  has  the  effect  of  keeping  the  price 
of  their  products  below  the  highest  limit  allowed  by  such  duty.  But 
it  is  notorious  that  this  competition  is  too  often  strangled  by  combina- 
tions quite  prevalent  at  this  time,  and  frequently  called  trusts,  which 
have  for  their  object  the  regulation  of  the  supply  and  price  of  com- 
modities made  and  sold  by  members  of  the  combination.  The  people 
can  hardly  hope  for  any  consideration  in  the  operation  of  these  selfish 
schemes.  If,  however,  in  the  absence  of  such  combination,  a  healthy 


PRESIDENT   CLEVELAND'S   ADMINISTRATION.  455 

and  free  competition  reduces  the  price  of  any  particular  dutiable  ar- 
ticle of  home  production  below  the  liinit  which  it  might  otherwise 
reach  under  our  tariff  laws,  and  if,  with  such  reduced  price,  its  man- 
ufacture continues  to  thrive,  it  is  entirely  evident  that  one  tiring  has 

/  «/  o 

been  discovered  which  should  be  carefully  scrutinized  in  an  effort  to 
reduce  taxation.  The  necessity  of  combination  to  maintain  the  price 
of  any  commodity  to  the  tariff  point  furnishes  proof  that  some  one  is 
willing  to  accept  lower  prices  for  such  commodity,  and  that  such 
prices  are  remunerative;  and  lower  prices  produced  by  competition 
prove  the  same  thing.  Thus  where  either  of  these  conditions  exists,  a 
case  would  seem  to  be  presented  for  an  easy  reduction  of  taxation. 

"  The  considerations  which  have  been  presented  touching  our  tariff 
laws  are  intended  only  to  enforce  an  earnest  recommendation  that  the 
surplus  revenues  of  the  Government  be  prevented  by  the  reduction 
of  ourcustoms  duties,  and,  at  the  same  time,  to  emphasize  a  suggestion 
that  in  accomplishing  this  purpose  we  may  discharge  a  double  duty  to 
our  people,  by  granting  to  them  a  measure  of  relief  from  tariff  taxa- 
tion in  quarters  where  it  can  be  most  fairly  and  justly  accorded.  Nor 
can  the  presentation  made  of  such  considerations  be,  with  any  degree 
of  fairness,  regarded  as  evidence  of  unfriendliness  toward  our  man- 
ufacturing interests,  or  any  lack  of  appreciation  of  their  value  and 
importance.  These  interests  constitute  a  leading  and  most  substan- 
tial element  of  our  national  greatness,  and  furnish  the  proud  proof 
of  our  country's  progress.  But  if  in  the  emergency  that  presses  upon 
us  our  manufacturers  are  asked  to  surrender  something  for  the  pub- 
lic good,  and  to  avert  disaster,  their  patriotism,  as  well  as  a  grateful 
recognition  of  advantages  already  afforded,  should  lead  them  to  will- 
ing co-operation.  No  demand  is  made  that  they  shall  forego  all  the 
benefits  of  governmental  regard;  but  they  can  not  fail  to  be  admon- 
ished of  their  duty,  as  well  as  their  enlightened  self-interest  and 
safety,  when  they  are  reminded  of  the  fact  that  financial  panic  and 
collapse,  to  which  the  present  condition  tends,  afford  no  greater 
shelter  or  protection  to  our  manufactures  than  to  our  other  important 
enterprises.  Opportunity  for  safe,  careful,  and  deliberate  reform  is 
now  offered;  and  none  of  us  should  be  unmindful  of  a  time  when  an 
abused  and  irritated  people,  heedless  of  those  who  have  resisted 
timely  and  reasonable  relief,  may  insist  upon  a  radical  and  sweeping 
rectification  of  their  wrongs.  The  difficulty  attending  a  wise  and 
fair  revision  of  our  tariff  laws  is  not  underestimated.  It  will  require 
on  the  part  of  the  Congress  great  labor  and  care,  and  especially  a 
broad  and  national  contemplation  of  the  subject,  and  a  patriotic  dis- 
regard of  such  local  and  selfish  claims  as  are  unreasonable  and  reck- 
less of  the  welfare  of  the  entire  country.  Under  our  present  laws 


456  HISTORY   OF  THE   REPUBLICAN    PARTY. 

more  than  four  thousand  articles  are  subject  to  duty.  Many  of  these 
do  not  in  any  way  compete  with  our  own  manufactures,  and  many  are 
hardly  worth  attention  as  subjects  of  revenue.  A  considerable  re- 
duction can  be  made  in  the  aggregate  by  adding  them  to  the  free 
list.  The  taxation  of  luxuries  presents  no  features  of  hardship;  but 
the  necessaries  of  life  used  and  consumed  by  all  the  people,  the  duty 
upon  which  adds  to  the  cost  of  living  in  every  home,  should  be  greatly 
cheapened.  The  radical  reduction  of  the  duties  imposed  upon  raw 
material  used  in  manufactures,  or  its  free  importation,  is  of  course 
an  important  factor  in  any  effort  to  reduce  the  price  of  these  neces- 
saries; it  would  not  only  relieve  them  from  the  increased  cost  caused 
by  the  tariff  on  such  material,  but  the  manufactured  product  being 
thus  cheapened,  the  part  of  the  tariff  now  laid  upon  such  product,  as  a 
compensation  to  our  manufacturers  for  the  present  price  of  raw 
material,  could  be  accordingly  modified.  Such  reduction,  or  free  im- 
portation, would  serve  besides  to  largely  reduce  the  revenue.  It  is  not 
apparent  how  such  a  change  could  have  any  injurious  effect  upon 
our  manufacturers.  On  the  contrary,  it  would  appear  to  give  them  a 
better  chance  in  foreign  markets  with  the  manufacturers  of  other 
countries,  who  cheapen  their  wyares  by  free  material.  Thus  our  people 
might  have  the  opportunity  of  extending  their  sales  beyond  the  limits 
of  home  consumption— saving  them  from  the  depression,  interrup- 
tion in  business,  and  loss  caused  by  a  glutted  domestic  market,  and 
affording  their  employees  more  certain  and  steady  labor,  with  its  re- 
sulting quiet  and  contentment. 

"  The  question  thus  imperatively  presented  for  solution  should  be 
approached  in  a  spirit  higher  than  partisanship,  and  considered  in 
the  light  of  that  regard  for  patriotic  duty  which  should  characterize 
the  action  of  those  intrusted  writh  the  weal  of  a  confiding  people.  But 
the  obligation  to  declare  party  policy  and  principle  is  not  wanting  to 
urge  prompt  and  effective  action.  Both  of  the  great  political  parties 
now  represented  in  the  Government  have,  by  repeated  and  authori- 
tative declarations,  condemned  the  condition  of  our  laws,  which  per- 
mit the  collection  from  the  people  of  unnecessary  revenue,  and  have, 
in  the  most  solemn  manner,  promised  its  correction;  and  neither  as 
citizens  nor  partisans  are  our  countrymen  in  a  mood  to  condone  the 
deliberate  violation  of  these  pledges.  Our  progress  toward  a  wise 
conclusion  will  not  be  improved  by  dwelling  upon  the  theories  of  pro- 
tection and  free  trade.  This  savors  too  much  of  bandying  epithets. 
It  is  a  condition  which  confronts  us — not  a  theory.  Relief  from  this 
condition  may  involve  a  slight  reduction  of  the  advantages  which  we 
award  our  home  productions,  but  the  entire  withdrawal  of  such  ad- 
vantages should  not  be  contemplated.  The  question  of  free  trade  is 


PRESIDENT   CLEVELAND'S   ADMINISTRATION.  457 

absolutely  irrelevant;  and  the  persistent  claim  made  in  certain  quar- 
ters that  all  efforts  to  relieve  the  people  from  unjust  and  unnecessary 
taxation  are  schemes  of  so-called  free-traders,  is  mischievous  and  far 
removed  from  any  consideration  for  the  public  good.  The  simple 
and  plain  duty  which  we  o\ve  the  people  is  to  reduce  taxation  to  the 
necessary  expense  of  an  economical  operation  of  the  Government,  and 
to  restore  to  the  business  of  the  country  the  money  which  we  hold 
in  the  Treasury  through  the  perversion  of  governmental  powrers. 
These  things  can  and  should  be  done  with  safety  to  all  our  industries, 
without  danger  to  the  opportunity  for  remunerative  labor  which  our 
workingmen  need,  and  with  benefit  to  them  and  all  our  people,  by 
cheapening  their  means  of  subsistence  and  increasing  the  measure  of 
their  comforts." 

The  effect  of  Mr.  Cleveland's  deliverance  was  immediate.  Tariff 
revision  at  once  became  a  question  of  absorbing  political  interest. 
Although  the  older  leaders  in  the  Democratic  party  shook  their  heads 
ominously  at  the  boldness  and  audacity  with  which  the  President 
forced  the  issue  upon  the  country,  the  young  politicians  welcomed  it 
with  avidity.  To  the  Southern  Democrats,  especially,  it  was  welcome 
as  a  return  to  the  doctrine  of  Free  Trade  and  the  principles  of  the 
Tariff  of  1846.  As  the  South  controlled  the  Committee  on  Ways  and 
Means,  it  was  believed  it  would  be  easy  to  prepare  a  Tariff  bill  in  line 
with  the  message.  What  became  known  as  the  Mills  Tariff  bill  was 
reported  from  the  committee,  March  1,  1888,  and  was  not  finally  dis- 
posed of  by  the  House  of  representatives  until  July  21.  The 
debate  was  opened  by  Roger  Q.  Mills,  of  Texas,  the  Chairman  of  the 
Ways  and  Means.  The  other  Democratic  members  of  the  committee, 
William  L.  Scott,  of  Pennsylvania;  Clifton  R.  Breckenridge,  of  Arkan- 
sas; William  L.  Wilson,  of  West  Virginia,  and  William  D.  Bynum,  of 
Indiana,  followed  with  elaborate  arguments.  Among  the  Democrat's 
who  were  most  prominent  in  support  of  the  measure  were  the  Speaker, 
Mr.  Carlisle;  S.  S.  Cox,  of  New  York;  John  E.  Russell,  of  Massa- 
chusetts, and  Charles  R.  Buckalew,  of  Pennsylvania.  The  principal 
Republican  opponents  of  the  bill  were  William  D.  Kelley,  of  Pennsyl- 
vania; William  McKinley,  of  Ohio;  Thomas  B.  Reed,  and  Charles  A. 
Boutelle,  of  Maine,  and  Henry  G.  Burleigh,  of  New  York.  Two  Rep- 
resentatives elected  as  Republicans,  Ashbel  P.  Fitch,  of  New  York, 
and  Knute  Nelson,  of  Minnesota,  favored  the  principle  of  the  bill,  and 
Samuel  J.  Randall,  of  Pennsylvania,  led  the  meager  contingent  of 
Democrats  that  opposed  it.  The  bill  was  finally  passed  by  the  House 
by  162  ayes  to  149  nays,  July  21,  1888,  in  time,  with  a  counter  bill  in 
the  Senate  embodying  the  Republican  doctrine  of  Protection,  to  be- 
come the  dominating  issue  of  the  Presidential  campaign  that  was 
then  beginning. 


HISTORY   OF  THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

The  Mills  bill  made  significant  reductions  in  existing  tariff  rates, 
but  it  was  hastily  and  crudely  drawn,  and  only  served  to  exhaust  the 
time  of  the  first  session  of  the  50th  Congress  for  political  effect,  with- 
out any  expectation  of  practical  legislation.  The  country  was  not 
prepared  for  Free  Trade  as  a  direct  issue,  and  the  consequences  *were 
disastrous  to  Mr.  Cleveland  and  his  party. 

President  Cleveland  gave  offense  to  many  Republicans  by  persist- 
ing in  the  veto  policy  in  the  50th  Congress  that  he  had  pursued  so 
relentlessly  in  the  49th,  and  especially  by  his  veto  of  the  Dependent 
Pension  bill.  A  hasty  order  for  the  return  of  Confederate  battle-flags, 
in  1887,  caused  so  much  excitement  that  it  was  revoked.  But  as  a 
whole  the  Administration  was  colorless,  apart  from  the  impetus  given 
to  Tariff  revision  by  the  President's  bold  message  in  December,  1887, 
and  the  passage  of  the  Mills  Tariff  bill  by  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives in  1888. 


rr-r 


V. 

THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1888. 

The  Democrats  Take  the  Lead — Democratic  National  Convention  at 
St.  Louis — The  Republican  Party  "  Struggling  for  Life  "•  —Eulo- 
gies of  President  Cleveland — Irish  Flattery — Nominating  Speech 
of  Daniel  Dougherty — Taxation  is  Robbery — Cleveland  Renomi- 
nated  by  Acclamation — The  Democratic  Platform — Allen  G. 
Thurmau  for  Vice-President — Republican  National  Convention 
at  Chicago — The  Presidential  Candidates — Organization  of  the 
Convention — The  Platform — Balloting — Analysis  of  the  Voting 
— Depew  Withdraws — McKinley's  Protest — Elaine's  Telegrams 
Read — Benjamin  Harrison  Nominated — Levi  P.  Morton  for  Vice- 
President — The  Candidates — Democratic  View  of  the  Campaign 
—Elements  of  Discontent — General  Harrison's  Election. 

ONTRARY  to  the  practice  of  previous  Presidential  cam- 
paigns during  the  long  period  of  Republican  supremacy, 
the  Democrats,  emboldened  by  their  confidence  in  the  Presi- 
dent's lead  in  favor  of  tariff  reduction,  in  1888,  anticipated 
the  Republicans  by  calling  the  Democratic  National  Convention  to 
meet  at  St.  Louis  a  fortnight  earlier  than  the  meeting  of  the  Repub- 
lican National  Convention  at  Chicago.  It  was  thought  as  the  party 
was  now  dominant  in  Federal  politics,  with  the  exception  of  the 
United  States  Senate,  that  it  should  take  the  lead  in  laying  down  its 
principles  and  naming  its  candidates.  When  the  National  Commit- 
tee met  to  settle  the  meeting-place  of  the  Convention  there  was  a 
spirited  contest  for  the  honor,  New  York,  Chicago,  St.  Louis,  Cincin- 
nati, and  San  Francisco  all  being  competitors.  St.  Louis,  for  the 
second  time  in  the  history  of  the  Democratic  party,  was  chosen  as  the 
Convention  city,  and  the  5th  of  June  was  named  as  the  day  for  the 
meeting. 

Long  before  the  Convention  met  it  was  apparent  that  Mr.  Cleveland 
would  have  no  competitor  for  the  Presidential  nomination.  Every 
State  in  the  Union  not  only  declared  in  favor  of  his  renomination, 
but  indorsed  his  position  on  the  tariff.  There  wras  a  feeling  among 
Democrats  that  his  re-election  was  assured,  and  even  that  the  Repub- 
lican party  was  no  longer  a  serious  menace  to  Democratic  supremacy. 
These  sentiments  were  voiced  by  Stephen  M.  White,  of  California, 


460  HISTORY   OF  THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

who  was  made  temporary  Chairman  of  the  Convention.  "  The  re- 
election of  Grover  Cleveland/'  Mr.  White  said,  "  is  demanded  by  the 
patriotic  sentiment  of  the  land.  The  Kepublican  party  is  struggling 
for  life.  It  can  not  long  survive.  Its  extended  incumbency  was  due 
to  the  fears  and  doubts  succeeding  the  civil  conflict.  These  forebod- 
ings have  been  removed  by  time  and  thought;  and  honest  opinion,  in 
spite  of  illegal  force  openly  used,  notwithstanding  criminal  efforts 
defeating  the  public  will  as  expressed  at  the  ballot-box,  has  driven 
unworthy  servants  from  office,  and  has  summoned  to  power  an  ad- 
ministration to  which  no  stain  or  suspicion  has  ever  attached.  .  .  . 
The  honest,  intelligent  electors,  whose  judgment  is  untainted  by  preju- 
dice, are  prepared  to  again  intrust  this  Government  to  the  Democratic 
party.  That  that  organization  has  accomplished  so  much,  notwith- 
standing the  continued  opposition  of  its  foes,  is  ample  evidence  that 
during  the  next  four  years  its  policy  will  be  finally  and  completely 
adopted.  The  coming  contest  will  result  in  the  triumph  of  Democ- 
racy. The  nominees  of  this  Convention  will  be  the  chosen  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  if  we  do  our  duty  the  Kepublican  party  wTill  be  unable  to 
retard  the  progress  of  our  country." 

The  work  of  the  Convention  was  not  so  much  to  nominate  a  candi- 
date for  President  of  the  United  States  as  to  eulogize  the  candidate 
upon  whom  the  party  was  united.  Mr.  White's  warm  indorsement  of 
Cleveland's  administration  was  almost  cold  in  comparison  with  the 
praises  of  the  Democratic  orators  who  followed  him.  On  the  second 
day  of  the  Convention,  Patrick  A.  Collins,  of  Massachusetts,  was  made 
its  permanent  President.  His  references  to  the  great  qualities  and 
surpassing  virtues  of  the  candidate  had  all  the  glow  and  fervor  of 
genuine  Irish  flattery.  "  We  need  not  wait,"  he  said,  "  for  time  to  do 
justice  to  the  character  and  services  of  President  Cleveland.  Honest, 
clear-sighted,  patient,  grounded  in  respect  for  law  and  justice,  with  a 
thorough  grasp  of  principles  and  situations,  with  marvelous  and  con- 
scientious industry;  the  very  incarnation  of  firmness — he  has  nobly 
fulfilled  the  promise  of  his  party,  nobly  met  the  expectations  of  his 
country,  and  written  his  name  high  on  the  scroll  where  future  Ameri- 
cans will  read  the  names  of  men  who  have  been  supremely  useful  to 
the  Republic." 

Not  easily  surfeited  with  the  vaunted  glories  of  the  man  of  might 
who,  after  the  wanderings  of  a  quarter  of  a  century,  had  led  the  Demo- 
cratic hosts  out  of  the  wilderness,  the  Convention  wTas  eager  for  still 
more  sounding  phrases  in  praise  of  the  Moses  of  the  Democracy.  In 
order  to  gratify  this  unusual  taste  for  oratory,  it  wras  determined  not 
to  wait  for  the  report  of  the  Committee  on. Resolutions — not  to  wait 
even  for  the  President's  State  in  calling  the  roll  before  putting  Mr. 


THE   CAMPAIGN    OF   1888.  461 

Cleveland  in  nomination.  The  call  of  the  States  was  accordingly  or- 
dered, and  in  the  name  of  Alabama,  the  first  on  the  list,  Daniel 
Dougherty,  the  "  silver-tongued  orator v  of  Philadelphia,  mounted 
the  rostrum  to  present  the  name  of  Grover  Cleveland.  "  We  are  here," 
he  said,  "  not  indeed  to  choose  a  candidate,  but  to  name  the  one  the 
people  have  already  chosen.  He  is  the  man  for  the  people.  His  career 
illustrates  the  glory  of  our  institutions.  Eight  years  ago  unknown 
save  in  his  own  locality,  he  for  the  last  four  years  has  stood  in  the  gaze 
of  the  world,  discharging  the  most  exalted  duties  that  can  be  confided 
to  a  mortal.  To-day  determines  that  not  of  his  own  choice,  but  by 
the  mandate  of  his  countrymen  and  with  the  sanction  of  heaven,  he 
shall  fill  the  Presidency  for  four  years  more.  He  has  met  and  mas- 
tered every  question  as  if  from  youth  trained  to  statesmanship.  The 
promises  of  his  letter  of  acceptance  and  inaugural  address  have  been 
fulfilled.  His  fidelity  in  the  past  inspires  faith  in  the  future.  He  is 
not  a  hope.  He  is  a  realization.  Scorning  subterfuge,  disdaining  re- 
election by  concealing  convictions,  mindful  of  his  oath  of  office  to  de- 
fend the  Constitution,  he  courageously  declares  to  Congress,  dropping 
minor  matters,  that  the  supreme  issue  is  reform,  revision,  reduction 
of  national  taxation;  that  the  Treasury  of  the  United  States,  glutted 
with  unneeded  gold,  oppresses  industry,  embarrasses  business,  en- 
dangers financial  tranquillity,  and  breeds  extravagance,  centraliza- 
tion, and  corruption;  that  high  taxation,  vital  for  the  expenditures  of 
an  unparalleled  war,  is  robbery  in  years  of  prosperous  peace;  that  the 
millions  that  pour  into  the  Treasury  come  from  the  hard-earned  sav- 
ings of  the  American  people;  that  in  violation  of  equality  of  rights 
the  present  tariff  has  created  a  privileged  class,  who,  shaping  legisla- 
tion for  their  personal  gain,  levy  by  law  contributions  upon  the  neces- 
saries of  life  from  every  man,  woman,  and  child  in  the  land;  that  to 
lower  the  tariff  is  not  free  trade — it  is  to  reduce  the  unjust  profits  of 
monopolists  and  boss  manufacturers,  and  allow  consumers  to  retain 
the  rest." 

After  the  enthusiasm  evoked  by  the  naming  of  the  candidate  had 
subsided,  speeches  seconding  the  nomination  were  made,  and  then  the 
question  of  nominating  Mr.  Cleveland  by  acclamation  was  put  to  the 
Convention.  Without  a  call  of  the  States  and  without  a  dissenting 
vote  this  was  agreed  to,  and  he  was  declared  the  Democratic  candi- 
date for  President  of  the  United  States.  Only  one  hour  and  a  quarter 
had  been  devoted  to  making  the  nomination.  When  the  result  was 
attained  the  Convention  adjourned  until  the  following  morning  to 
await  the  report  of  the  Committee  on  Resolutions. 

The  adoption  of  the  Platform  was  the  business  of  the  third  day's 
proceedings.  While  taking  the  same  ground  in  favor  of  tariff  reduc- 


462  HISTORY   OF  THE   REPUBLICAN    PARTY. 

tioii  that  the  President  had  taken  in  his  message  in  1887,  the  Platform 
was  not  such  a  bold  and  open  avowal  of  Democratic  tendencies  in 
favor  of  Free  Trade.  Indeed,  as  originally  reported,  it  contained  no 
direct  allusion  to  the  Mills  Tariff  bill,  which  had  passed  the  House, 
and  was  pending  or  rather  suspending  in  the  Senate.  This  oversight 
was  corrected  by  a  resolution  recommending  the  passage  of  that 
measure,  offered  in  the  Convention  by  William  L.  Scott,  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, which  was  adopted  and  made  part  of  the  Platform. 

Three  candidates  were  named  for  Vice-President — Allen  G.  Thur- 
man,  of  Ohio;  John  C.  Black,  of  Illinois,  and  Isaac  P.  Gray,  of  Indiana. 
Only  one  ballot  was  necessary,  Mr.  Thurman  receiving  067  votes,  to 
104 "  for  Mr.  Gray  and  31  for  General  Black.  Twenty -three  States 
voted  solidly  for  Thurman,  including  New  York,  Ohio,  and  Pennsyl- 
vania. In  calling  Mr.  Thurman  from  his  retirement  to  accept  this 
nomination  some  fear  was  expressed,  even  by  Democrats,  that  he  was 
too  old  for  the  position  in  case  of  his  election.  Mr.  Thurman,  in  fact, 
was  younger  than  Kaiser  Wilhelm  when  he  consolidated  the  German 
Empire;  younger  than  Gortschakoff  when  he  dominated  Russia; 
younger  than  Thiers  when  he  became  the  first  President  of  the  French 
Republic,  and  as  young  as  Disraeli  when  he  made  Queen  Victoria 
Empress  of  India. 

The  Republican  National  Convention  of  1888,  when  it  met  at  Chi- 
cago on  the  19th  of  June,  did  not  have  its  work  cut  out  for  it.  With 
the  exception  of  John  Sherman  and  James  G.  Blaine,  wrho  was  not  a 
candidate  with  his  own  consent,  the  list  of  Presidential  aspirants  was 
made  up  of  new  names.  Some  of  the  men  who  were  to  be  put  in 
nomination  had  never  before  been  voted  for  in  a  National  Convention. 
When  the  roll  of  the  States  was  called  on  the  third  day  of  the  Con- 
vention for  the  nomination  of  Presidential  candidates  Connecticut 
presented  General  Joseph  R.  Hawley;  Illinois,  Walter  Q.  Gresham; 
Indiana,  General  Benjamin  Harrison;  Iowra,  William  B.  Allison; 
Michigan,  Russell  A.  Alger;  New  York,  Chauncey  M.  Depew;  Ohio, 
John  Sherman;  Pennsylvania,  Edwin  H.  Fitler,  and  Wisconsin,  Jere- 
miah M.  Rusk.  With  such  a  list  of  candidates,  some  of  them  unknown 
to  the  delegates  outside  of  their  own  States,  it  is  not  surprising  that 
the  work  of  the  Convention  was  almost  as  prolonged  as  that  of  the 
Convention  of  1880. 

The  Convention  opened  with  a  brief  address  by  Benjamin  F.  Jones, 
the  Chairman  of  the  National  Committee,  after  which  John  M.  Thur- 
ston,  of  Nebraska,  was  made  temporary  President.  The  usual  com- 
mittees being  named,  the  Convention  listened  to  speeches  by  John  C. 
Fremont  and  Frederick  Douglass,  and  then  adjourned  until  the  next 
morning.  When  the  Convention  met  on  Wednesday  the  organization 


THE   CAMPAIGN    OF   1888.  463 

was  perfected  by  the  selection  of  Morris  M.  Estee,  of  California,  as 
permanent  President.  While  waiting  for  the  report  of  the  Committee 
on  Credentials  there  were  more  speeches,  W.  O.  Bradley,  of  Kentucky, 
and  J.  B.  Foraker,  of  Ohio,  being  the  orators.  A  feature  of  the  even- 
ing session  was  the  adoption  of  resolutions  of  respect  to  the  memory 
of  Grant,  Arthur,  and  Logan.  The  contests  were  those  between  the 
Mahone  and  Wise  delegates  from  Virginia.  The  Mahone  delegates-at- 
large  were  seated,  but  the  seats  for  the  Congress  districts  were  ac- 
eorded  to  the  Wise  claimants.  The  contest  wras  the  occasion  of  a 
minority  report  and  a  long  debate  in  the  Convention. 

The  Platform  was  reported  on  Thursday  morning.  The  acceptance 
of  the  Tariff  issue  was  unequivocal.  The  Mills  bill  was  denounced 
and  the  proposition  to  place  wool  on  the  free  list  condemned.  "  The 
Republican  party,"  said  the  Platform,  "  would  effect  all  needed  reduc- 
tion of  the  national  revenue  by  repealing  the  taxes  upon  tobacco, 
which  are  an  annoyance  and  burden  to  agriculture,  and  the  tax  upon 
spirits  used  in  the  arts  and  for  mechanical  purposes,  and  by  such  re- 
vision of  the  Tariff  laws  as  will  tend  to  check  imports  of  such  articles 
as  are  produced  by  our  people,  the  production  of  which  gives  employ- 
ment to  our  labor,  and  releases  from  import  duties  those  articles  of 
foreign  production  (except  luxuries)  the  like  of  which  can  not  be  pro- 
duced at  home.  If  there  shall  still  remain  a  larger  revenue  than  is 
requisite  for  the  wants  of  the  Government,  we  favor  the  entire  repeal 
of  the  internal  taxes  rather  than  the  surrender  of  any  part  of  our  pro- 
tective system  at  the  joint  behest  of  the  whisky  ring  and  the  agents 
of  foreign  manufacturers."  The  party  leaders  failed  to  foresee  the 
real  issue  of  the  currency  question  in  the  future,  and  the  Platform  not 
only  declared  in  favor  of  the  use  of  both  gold  and  silver  as  money,  but 
condemned  "  the  policy  of  the  Democratic  administration  in  its  efforts 
to  demonetize  silver."  The  foreign  policy  of  Cleveland's  administra- 
tion was  condemned  for  its  inefficiency  and  cowardice,  and  on  the 
Fisheries  question  with  Canada  the  Administration  was  denounced  for 
"  its  pusillanimous  surrender  of  the  essential  privileges  to  which  our 
fishing  vessels  are  entitled  in  Canadian  ports  under  the  treaty  of  1818, 
the  reciprocal  maritime  legislation  of  1830,  and  the  comity  of  nations, 
and  which  Canadian  fishing  vessels  receive  in  the  ports  of  the  United 
States."  The  Platform  closed  with  a  denunciation  of  the  hostile  spirit 
shown  by  the  President  in  his  numerous  pension  vetoes,  and  the  ac- 
tion of  the  Democratic  House  of  Representatives  in  refusing  a  consid- 
eration of  general  pension  legislation. 

General  Hawley  was  put  in  nomination  by  Mr.  Warner;  Mr.  Gres- 
ham  by  Leonard  Swett,  one  of  the  confidential  friends  of  Abraham 
Lincoln;  General  Harrison  by  ex-Governor  Porter;  Mr.  Allison  by  Mr. 


464  HISTORY   OF  THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

Hepburn,  of  Iowa;  General  Alger  by  Colonel  Robert  E.  Frazer;  Mr. 
Depew  by  Frank  Hiscock;  Mayor  Fitler,  of  Philadelphia,  by  Charles 
Emory  Smith,  and  General  Husk  by  Senator  Spooner.  The  balloting 
was  as  follows: 

June  22.  June  23.  June  25. 


1234567 

Harrison 80         91         94       217       213       231       278 

Sherman 229       249       244       235       224       244       231 

Alger 84       216       122       135       142       137       120 

Gresham Ill       108       123         98         87         91         91 

Allison 72         75         88         88         99         73         76 

Depew 99         99         91 

Rusk 25         20         16 

Phelps 25         18          5 

Ingalls 28         16 

Hawley 13 

Fitler.' 24 

McKinley 2           3           8         11         14         12         16 

Lincoln 3221                                   2 

Miller 2 

Douglass 1 

Foraker 1                      11 

Grant 1 

Haymond 1 

Elaine.  35        33         35         42        48         40         15 


Total  vote.  ...  830  830  830  829  827  830  831  830 
Necessary  for 

choice!    ....   416       416       416       415       414       416       416       416 

It  will  be  seen  that  on  the  first  ballot  93  votes  were  cast  for  candi- 
dates who  had  not  been  formally  placed  in  nomination — 35  for  James 
G.  Elaine,  28  for  John  J.  Ingalls,  25  for  William  Walter  Phelps,  3  for 
Robert  T.  Lincoln,  and  2  for  William  McKinley.  When  Hawley  and 
Fitler  were  withdrawn,  after  the  ballot,  Sherman  gained  20  votes. 
Alger  32,  Gresham  3,  Harrison  16,  McKinley  1;  but  Ingalls  lost  12, 
Phelps  7,  and  Elaine  2.  The  name  of  Senator  Ingalls  was  then  with- 
drawn. On  the  third  ballot  the  greatest  gain  was  for  Gresham,  who 
passed  Alger  by  one  vote,  while  Sherman  lost  five  votes.  Elaine  recov- 
ered his  two  lost  votes,  and  McKinley  gained  5.  After  the  third  ballot 
the  Convention  took  a  recess  until  evening.  The  sensation  of  the 
evening  was  the  withdrawal  of  Chauncey  M.  Depew,  w7ho  had  made 


THE   CAMPAIGN    OF   1888.  465 

no  gains  on  the  second  ballot  and  lost  8  votes  on  the  third.  It  was 
apparent  that  Mr.  Depew  could  not  be  nominated,  and  he  was  cha- 
grined that  he  had  allowed  his  name  to  be  used.  As  it  was  understood 
that  the  support  of  the  New  York  delegation  would  go  to  General 
Harrison,  the  friends  of  the  other  candidates  became  solicitous,  and 
an  adjournment  was  ordered  until  Saturday. 

The  event  of  Saturday  Avas  the  speech  of  William  McKinley,  of 
Ohio,  protesting  against  being  voted  for  as  a  candidate.  "  I  am  here," 
he  said,  "  as  one  of  the  chosen  representatives  of  my  State.  I  am  here 
by  a  resolution  of  the  Republican  party,  without  one  dissenting  voice, 
commanding  me  to  cast  my  vote  for  John  Sherman,  and  use  every 
worthy  endeavor  for  his  nomination.  I  accepted  the  trust,  because 
my  heart  and  judgment  were  in  accord  with  the  letter  and  spirit  and 
purpose  of  that  resolution.  It  has  pleased  certain  delegates  to  cast 
their  votes  for  me.  I  am  not  insensible  to  the  honor  they  would  do 
me,  but  in  the  presence  of  the  duty  resting  upon  me  I  can  not  remain 
silent  with  honor.  I  can  not  consistently  with  the  credit  of  the  State 
whose  credentials  I  bear  and  which  has  trusted  me,  I  can  not  wTith 
honorable  fidelity  to  John  Sherman,  who  trusted  me  in  his  cause  with 
his  confidence,  I  can  not  consistently  with  my  own  views  of  personal 
integrity,  consent  or  seem  to  consent  to  permit  my  name  to  be  used 
as  a  candidate  before  this  Convention.  I  would  not  respect  myself  if 
I  could  find  it  in  my  heart  to  do,  to  say,  or  permit  to  be  done,  that 
which  could  even  be  ground  for  any  one  to  suspect  that  I  wavered  in 
my  loyalty  to  Ohio,  or  my  devotion  to  the  chief  of  her  choice  and  the 
chief  of  mine.  I  do  request,  I  demand,  that  no  delegates  who  wrould 
not  cast  reflection  upon  me  shall  cast  a  ballot  for  me." 

The  fourth  ballot  left  Sherman  still  in  the  lead,  but  with  Harrison 
a  close  second.  Alger  gained  13  votes  and  Gresham  lost  25.  On 
this  ballot  the  Pennsylvania  vote  remained  firm  for  Sherman  with  the 
hope  of  beating  Harrison.  On  the  next  ballot,  the  fifth,  Harrison 
lost  4  votes  and  Sherman  11,  but  Alger  and  Allison  showed  gains,  and 
McKinley's  vote,  in  spite  of  his  protest,  was  14  and  Elaine's  48.  In 
view  of  the  change  in  the  relative  standing  of  the  candidates,  and  the 
desire  among  the  delegates  for  consultation,  the  Convention,  after 
the  fifth  ballot,  took  a  recess  until  4  o'clock,  and  then  determined  to 
adjourn  until  Monday.  When  the  Convention  again  assembled  after 
the  Sunday  rest  Mr.  Boutelle,  of  Maine,  obtained  consent  to  make  a 
privileged  announcement,  and,  mounting  the  platform,  said: 

"  I  am  under  a  restraint  which  I  do  not  feel  at  liberty  to  ignore, 
and  without  attempting  to  give  constructions  or  interpretations  of 
my  own  to  the  language  of  one  greater  than  myself  by  far,  I  discharge 
my  humble  duty,  as  the  representative  of  the  Maine  delegation,  by 


466  HISTORY   OF   THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

reading  to  you,  without  preface  or  comment,  the  following  dispatches 
which  I  have  received : 

"  *  EDINBURGH,  June  25. 
"  '  To  Boutelle  and  Manley,  at  Chicago : 

"  '  Earnestly  request  all  friends  to  respect  my  Paris  letter. 

"  <  (Signed)  JAMES  G.  ELAINE.' 

"  The  second  says: 

"  *  EDINBURGH,  June  25. 

"  '  I  think  I  have  the  right  to  ask  my  friends  to  respect  my  wishes 
and  refrain  from  voting  for  me.  Please  make  this  and  former  dis- 
patches public.  (Signed)  JAMES  G.  ELAINE.'  " 

Notwithstanding  this  announcement  Elaine  received  40  votes  on 
the  sixth  ballot,  which  followed.  Harrison's  figures  were  reversed 
from  213  to  231,  but  Sherman's  vote,  which  had  fallen  to  224,  was 
increased  to  244.  On  this  ballot  Frederick  D.  Grant  received  one  vote. 
The  trend  was  now  setting  so  strongly  in  Harrison's  favor  that  it  was 
expected  the  seventh  ballot  would  secure  his  nomination,  and  vir- 
tually such  was  the  result.  He  received  278  votes,  which  gave  him  a 
lead  that  rendered  him  invincible.  Allison  was  withdrawn,  his  with- 
drawal leaving  Sherman  utterly  without  hope.  When  the  vote  of 
Tennessee  was  cast  on  the  last  ballot  Harrison  was  already  nominated, 
and  the  rest  of  the  voting  was  a  landslide  for  the  nominee.  The  result 
was  received  with  great  applause.  Hats  were  thrown  up  by  the  men, 
and  the  ladies  in  the  galleries  waved  their  handkerchiefs  and  parasols. 
One  of  the  officers  of  the  Convention  climbed  to  the  Chairman's  desk 
and  unfurled  a  banner  containing  a  portrait  of  Harrison.  If  the  dele- 
gates had  met  at  Chicago  a  week  before  determined  to  make  Harrison 
the  candidate  the  enthusiasm  could  not  have  been  greater. 

The  nominations  for  the  Vice-Presidency  were  Levi  P.  Morton,  of 
New  York;  William  Walter  Phelps,  of  New  Jersey,  and  William  O. 
Bradley,  of  Kentucky.  There  was  only  one  ballot,  the  vote  being: 
Morton,  561;  Phelps,  119;  Bradley,  93;  Blanche  K.  Bruce,  of  Missis- 
sippi, 11,  and  Walter  F.  Thomas,  of  Texas,  1. 

General  Harrison  possessed  many  attributes  and  qualities  that  ren- 
dered him  a  popular  candidate  with  Republicans  in  every  part  of  the 
country.  As  the  grandson  of  William  Henry  Harrison,  who  died  only 
one  month  after  his  inauguration  as  the  first  Whig  President  of  the 
United  States,  a  romantic  political  interest  attached  to  his  candida- 
ture. As  a  soldier  in  the  War  for  the  Union,  he  had  risen  from  the 
rank  of  a  second-lieutenant  in  the  Seventieth  Regiment,  Indiana  Vol- 
unteers, to  Brigadier-General.  Both  at  the  head  of  his  regiment  and 
as  the  commander  of  a  brigade  he  distinguished  himself  by  his  sol- 
dierly qualities.  He  led  the  assault  at  Resaca  in  May,  1864,  and  at 


THE   CAMPAIGN    OF    1888. 


467 


Peacktree  Creek  he  elicited  the  admiration  of  his  commanding  officer, 
General  Hooker.  At  the  Indianapolis  bar  after  the  war  he  took  high 
rank.  In  1870  he  was  the  Republican  candidate  for  Governor  of  In- 
diana, but  the  contest  that  year  was  known  to  be  a  hopeless  one,  and 
he  accepted  the  nomination  only  as  a  public  duty.  He  was  elected  to 
the  United  States  Senate  in  1881,  and  gained  great  distinction  during 
his  term  in  that  body.  His  nomination  for  the  Presidency  was  in 
every  way  worthy  of  the  party  and  its  traditions,  and  of  all  the  can- 
didates before  the  Chicago  Convention  in  1888  he  was  best  suited  to 
win  back  the  government  from  Grover  Cleveland  and  the  Democracy. 

Mr.  Morton  was  a  merchant  and  banker  who  had  risen  from  poverty 
in  Vermont  to  affluence  in  New  York.  He  had  not  entered  politics 
until  1876,  when  he  was  a  candidate 
for  Congress  in  New  York  City,  but 
was  defeated.  In  1878  he  was  again 
a  candidate,  and  was  elected.  Mr. 
Morton  was  offered  the  post  of  Secre- 
tary of  the  Navy  in  the  Cabinet  of 
President  Garfield,  but  he  declined, 
and  was  appointed  Minister  to 
France.  As  a  man  of  large  business 
experience,  distinguished  public  serv- 
ice, and  unblemished  reputation,  he 
added  strength  to  the  ticket,  and 
helped  the  party  to  enter  upon  a  win- 
ning campaign. 

"  The  campaign,"  according  to 
one  of  Mr.  Cleveland's  biographers, 
"  was  a  bitter  and  unrelenting  one 
on  the  part  of  the  Republicans. 

They  had  known  for  four  years  what  it  was  to  be  in  the  minority. 
They  had  also  felt  what  it  was  to  have  a  President  of  the  United 
States  who  represented  the  reverse  of  everything  that  they  them- 
selves had  emphasized  during  the  latter  stages  of  the  history  of  their 
party.  So  they  attempted  to  make  use  of  the  tariff-reform  message 
of  the  previous  year  to  raise  the  usual  scare  about  the  reduction  of 
wages  of  workingmen.  In  this  thev  had  little  success,  but  as  the 

~  ~  V 

canvass  progressed,  it  became  apparent  that  there  was  not  enough 
time  to  reach  the  farming  population  of  the  country,  and  to  instruct 
them  fully  in  the  meaning  of  tariff  reform.  The  desperation  of  Re- 
publican partisans  and  the  interests  of  certain  classes  of  manufactur- 
ers enabled  the  managers  to  raise  large  sums  of  money,  which  were 
used  corruptly,  and  with  much  effect,  in  several  of  the  close  States. 


LEVI    P.    MORTON. 


468  HISTORY   OF   THE   REPUBLICAN    PARTY. 

In  this  way  the  vote  of  Indiana  was  carried,  and  in  the  same  way  the 
State  of  New  York  gave  its  electoral  vote  to  Mr.  Harrison  by  a  small 
majority.  Probably  at  no  time  in  our  history  has  there  been  such  a 
carnival  of  corruption  as  was  seen  at  that  time.  The  success  achieved 
was,  however,  comparatively  small,  so  far  as  public  sentiment  wat< 
concerned,  as  the  party  successful  in  the  Electoral  College  was  un- 
able to  command  a  majority  of  the  votes  of  the  United  States." 

These  were  merely  the  utterances  of  disappointment  and  chagrin. 
No  Presidential  canvass  was  ever  conducted  on  a  higher  plane  of 
political  morality.  There  was  no  attempt  to  "  raise  the  usual  scare 
about  the  reduction  of  the  wages  of  workingmen."  Mr.  Cleveland's 
famous  message  and  the  Mills  bill  had  effected  that  without  any  ex- 
traordinary  efforts  of  the  Republicans.  There  was  no  need  to  "  reach 
the  farming  population  of  the  country  and  instruct  them  in  the  mean- 
ing of  tariff  reform."  No  class  of  voters  in  this  country  is  better  in- 
structed than  the  American  farmers.  There  was  no  corrupt  pur- 
chase of  voters  in  Indiana  or  New  York.  Presidents  are  not  elected 
by  popular  majorities,  and  it  would  be  a  sad  day  for  this  country  if 
a  plurality  of  98,017  should  elect  in  a  vote  exceeding  11,000,000. 

A  sign  of  the  unrest  of  the  period  is  found  in  the  multiplicity  of 
candidates  in  1888.  The  Prohibitionists  nominated  Clinton  B.  Fisk, 
of  New  Jersey,  for  President,  and  John  A.  Brooks,  of  Missouri,  for 
Vice-President;  the  Union  Labor  party,  Alson  J.  Streeter,  of  Illinois, 
for  President,  and  Charles  E.  Cunningham,  of  Arkansas,  for  Yice- 
President;  the  United  Labor  party,  Robert  II.  Cowdry,  of  Illinois,  for 
President,  and  W.  II.  T.  \Yakeman,  of  Kansas,  for  Vice-President; 
the  "  American  "  party,  James  Langdon  Curtis,  of  New  York,  for 
President,  and  James  R.  Greer,  of  Tennessee,  for  Vice-President,  and 
the  National  Greenback  party  and  one  or  two  other  factions  repre- 
senting the  elements  of  discontent  went  through  the  formality  of  mak- 
ing nominations.  Fisk's  vote  was  249,665;  Streeter's,  146,883;  Cow- 
dry's,  3,073;  Curtis's,  1,591;  and  all  the  others,  9,854.  The  total  vote 
was  11,388,007.  General  Harrison  carried  twenty  States  with  233 
Electoral  votes,  and  Mr.  Cleveland  eighteen  States  with  168  Elec- 
toral votes. 

The  period  that  began  with  defeat  had  ended  in  recovery,  that  was 
to  be  followed  by  another  Period  of  Discontent  in  which  similar  politi- 
cal phenomena  were  to  be  repeated. 


DOCUMENTARY  HISTORY  OF  THE  EPOCH. 

REPUBLICAN  PLATFORM  OF  1884. 

1.  The  Republicans  of  the  United  States,  in  Convention  assembled, 
renew   their   allegiance   to   the   principles   upon    which   they    have 
triumphed  in  six  successive  Presidential  elections,  and  congratulate 
the  American  people  on  the  attainment  of  so  many  results  in  legisla- 
tion and  administration  by  which  the  Republican  party  has,  after  sav- 
ing the  Union,  done  so  much  to  render  its  institutions  just,  equal,  and 
beneficent — the  safeguard  of  liberty  and  the  embodiment  of  the  best 
thought  and  highest  purposes  of  our  citizens.     The  Republican  party 
has  gained  its  strength  by  quick  and  faithful  response  to  the  demands 
of  the  people  for  the  freedom  and  the  equality  of  all  men;  for  a  united 
nation,  assuring  the  rights  of  all  citizens;  for  the  elevation  of  labor; 
for  an  honest  currency;  for  purity  in  legislation,  and  for  integrity 
and  accountability  in  all  departments  of  the  Government;  and  it 
accepts  anew  the  duty  of  leading  in  the  work  of  progress  and  reform. 

2.  We  lament  the  death  of  President  Garfield,  whose  sound  states- 
manship, long  conspicuous  in  Congress,  gave  promise  of  a  strong 
and  successful  administration,  a  promise  fully  realized  during  the 
short  period  of  his  office  as  President  of  the  United  States.     His  dis- 
tinguished success  in  war  and  in  peace  has  endeared  him  to  the  hearts 
of  the  American  people. 

3.  In  the  Administration  of  President  Arthur  we  recognize  a  wise, 
conservative,  and  patriotic  policy,  under  which  the  country  has  been 
blessed  with  remarkable  prosperity;  and  wre  believe  his  eminent  serv- 
ices are  entitled  to  and  will  receive  the  hearty  approval  of  every 
citizen. 

4.  It  is  the  first  duty  of  a  good  Government  to  protect  the  rights 
and  promote  the  interests  of  its  own  people;  the  largest  diversity  of 
industry  is  most  productive  of  general  prosperit}1"  and  of  the  comfort 
and  independence  of  the  people.    We,  therefore,  demand  that  the  im- 
position of  duties  on  foreign  imports  shall  be  made,  not  for  "  revenue 
only,"  but  that  in  raising  the  requisite  revenues  for  the  Government, 
such  duty  shall  be  so  levied  as  to  afford  security  to  our  diversified  in- 
dustries and  protection  to  the  rights  and  wages  of  the  laborer,  to  the 
end  that  active  and  intelligent  labor,  as  well  as  capital,  may  have  its 
just  reward,  and  the  laboring  man  his  full  share  in  the  national 
prosperity. 

5.  Against  the  so-called  economical  system  of  the  Democratic  party, 


470  HISTORY   OF   THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

which  would  degrade  our  labor  to  the  foreign  standard,  we  enter 
our  earnest  protest;  the  Democratic  party  has  failed  completely  to 
relieve  the  people  of  the  burdens  of  unnecessary  taxation  by  a  wise 
reduction  of  the  surplus. 

G.  The  Republican  party  pledges  itself  to  correct  the  inequalities 
of  the  tariff  and  to  reduce  the  surplus,  not  by  the  vicious  and  indis- 
criminate process  of  horizontal  reduction,  but  by  such  methods  as 
will  relieve  the  taxpayer  without  injuring  the  laborer  or  the  great 
productive  interests  of  the  country. 

7.  We  recognize  the  importance  of  sheep  husbandry  in  the  United 
States,  the  serious  depression  which  it  is  now  experiencing  and  the 
danger  threatening  its  future  prosperity;  and  we,  therefore,  respect 
the  demands  of  the  representatives  of  this  important  agricultural  in- 
terest for  a  readjustment  of  duty  upon  foreign  wool  in  view  that 
such  industry  shall  have  full  and  adequate  protection. 

8.  We  have  always  recommended  the  best  money  known  to  the 
civilized  world,  and  we  urge  that  an  effort  be  made  to  unite  all  com- 
mercial nations  in  the  establishment  of  the  international  standard 
which  shall  fix  for  all  the  relative  value  of  gold  and  silver  coin- 
si  O'fl 

<i^^- 

9.  The  regulation  of  commerce  with  foreign  nations  and  between 
the  States  is  one  of  the  most  important  prerogatives  of  the  general 
Government,  and  the  Republican  party  distinctly  announces  its  pur- 
pose to  support  such  legislation  as  will  fully  and  efficiently  carry  out 
the   constitutional    power   of   Congress    over    interstate    commerce. 
The  principle  of  the  public  regulation  of  railway  corporations  is 
a  wise  and  salutary  one  for  the  protection  of  all  classes  of  the  people, 
and  we  favor  legislation  that  shall  prevent  unjust  discrimination  and 
excessive  charges  for  transportation,  and  that  shall  secure  to  the 
people  and  to  the  railroads  alike  the  fair  and  equal  protection  of  the 
laws. 

10.  We  favor  the  establishment  of  a  National  Bureau  of  Labor;  the 
enforcement  of  the  eight-hour  law;  a  wise  and  judicious  system  of 
general  education  by  adequate  appropriation  from  the  National  reve- 
nues wherever  the  same  is  needed.    We  believe  that  everywhere  the 
protection  of  a  citizen  of  American  birth  must  be  secured  to  citizens 
by  American  adoption,  and  we  favor  the  settlement  of  National  differ- 
ences by  international  arbitration. 

11.  The  Republican  party,  having  its  birth  in  a  hatred  of  slave  la- 
tor  and  a  desire  that  all  men  may  be  truly  free  and  equal,  is  unaltera- 
bly opposed  to  placing  our  workingmen  in  competition  with  any  form 
of  servile  labor,  whether  at  home  or  abroad.  In  this  spirit  we  denounce 
the  importation  of  contract  labor,  whether  at  home  or  abroad,  as  an 


DOCUMENTARY   HISTORY   OF   THE   EPOCH.  471 

offense  against  the  spirit  of  American  institutions,  and  we  pledge 
ourselves  to  sustain  the  present  law  restricting  Chinese  immigration, 
and  to  provide  such  further  legislation  as  is  necessary  to  carry  out  its 
purposes. 

12.  Reform  of  the  civil  service,  auspiciously  begun  under  Republic- 
an administration,  should  be  completed  by  the  further  extension  of 
the  reform  system  already  established  by  lawr  to  all  the  grades  of  the 
service  to  which  it  is  applicable.    The  spirit  and  purpose  of  the  reform 
should  be  observed  in  all  executive  appointments,  and  all  laws  at 
variance  writh  the  objects  of  existing  reform  legislation  should  be 
repealed  to  the  end  that  the  dangers  to  free  institutions  which  lurk 
in  the  power  of  official  patronage  may  be  wisely  and  effectively 
avoided. 

13.  The  public  lauds  are  a  heritage  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States,  and  should  be  reserved  as  far  as  possible  for  small  holdings 
by  actual  settlers.    We  are  opposed  to  the  acquisition  of  large  tracts 
of  these  lands  by  corporations  or  individuals,  especially  where  such 
holdings  are  in  the  hands  of  non-resident  aliens,  and  we  will  endeavor 
to  obtain  such  legislation  as  will  tend  to  correct  this  evil.    We  demand 
of  Congress  the  speedy  forfeiture  of  all  land-grants  which  have  lapsed 
by  reason  of  non-compliance  with  acts  of  incorporation,  in  all  cases 
where  there  has  been  no  attempt  in  good  faith  to  perform  the  condi- 
tions of  such  grants. 

14.  The  grateful  thanks  of  the  American  people  are  due  to  the 
Union  soldiers  and  sailors  of  the  late  war,  and  the  Republican  party 
stands  pledged  to  suitable  pensions  to  all  who  were  disabled  and  for 
the  \vidows  and  orphans  of  those  who  died  in  the  war.     The  Repub- 
lican party  pledges  itself  to  the  repeal  of  the  limitation  contained  in 
the  Arrears  act  of  1879,  so  that  all  invalid  soldiers  shall  share  alike, 
and  their  pensions  shall  begin  with  the  date  of  disability  or  discharge, 
and  not  with  the  date  of  the  application. 

15.  The  Republican  party  favors  a  policy  which  shall  keep  us  from 
entangling  alliances  with  foreign  nations,  and  which  shall  give  the 
right  to  expect  that  foreign  nations  shall  refrain  from  meddling  in 
America,  and  the  policy  which  seeks  peace  can  trade  with  all  powers, 
but  especially  with  those  of  the  Western  Hemisphere. 

1(>.  We  demand  the  restoration  of  our  navy  to  its  old-time  strength 
and  efficiency,  that  it  may  in  any  sea  protect  the  rights  of  American 
citizens  and  the  interests  of  American  commerce,  and  we  call  upon 
Congress  to  remove  the  burdens  under  which  American  shipping  has 
been  depressed,  so  that  it  may  again  be  true  that  we  have  a  commerce 
which  leaves  no  sea  unexplored,  and  a  navy  which  takes  no  law  from 
superior  force. 


472  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

IT.  Resolved,  That  appointments  by  the  President  to  offices  in  the 
Territories  should  be  made  from  the  botta  fide  citizens  and  residents  of 
the  Territories  wherein  they  are  to  serve. 

18.  Rexohrd,  That  it  is  the  duty  of  Congress  to  enact  such  laws  as 
shall  promptly  and  effectually  suppress  the  system  of  polygamy  with- 
in our  Territories,  and  divorce  the  political  from  the  ecclesiastical 
power  of  the  so-called  Mormon  Church,  and  that  the  law  so  enacted 
should  be  rigidly  enforced  by  the  civil  authorities,  if  possible,  and  by 
the  military  if  need  be. 

19.  The  people  of  the  United  States  in  their  organized  capacity  con- 
stitute a  nation  and  not  a  mere  confederacy  of  States.    The  National 
Government  is  supreme  within  the  sphere  of  its  National  duty,  but 
the  States  have  reserved  rights  which  should  be  faithfully  main- 
tained; each  should  be  guarded  with  jealous  care,  so  that  the  harmony 
of  our  system  of  government  may  be  preserved  and  the  Union  kept 
inviolate. 

20.  The  perpetuity  of  our  institutions  rests  upon  the  maintenance 
of  a  free  ballot,  an  honest  count,  and  a  correct  return.    We  denounce 
the  fraud  and  violence  practiced  by  the  Democratic  party  in  Southern 
States,  by  which  the  will  of  the  voter  is  defeated,  as  dangerous  to  the 
preservation  of  free  institutions,  and  we  solemnly  arraign  the  Demo 
cratic  party  as  being  the  guilty  recipient  of  the  fruit  of  such  fraud  and 
violence. 

21.  We  extend  to  the  Republicans  of  the  South,  regardless  of  their 
former  party  affiliations,  our  cordial  sympathy,  and  pledge  to  them 
our  most  earnest  efforts  to  promote  the  passage  of  such  legislation 
as  will  secure  to  every  citizen,  of  whatever  race  and  color,  the  full  and 
complete  recognition,  possession,  and  exercise  of  all  civil  and  political 
rights. 

DEMOCRATIC   PLATFORM,  1884. 

The  Democratic  party  of  the  Union,  through  its  representatives  in 
National  Convention  assembled,  recognizes  that,  as  the  Nation  grows 
older,  new  issues  are  born  of  time  and  progress,  and  older  issues  per- 
ish. But  the  fundamental  principles  of  the  Democracy,  approved  by 
the  united  voice  of  the  people,  remain,  and  will  ever  remain,  as  the 
best  and  only  security  for  the  continuance  of  free  government.  The 
preservation  of  personal  rights;  the  equality  of  all  citizens  before  the 
law;  the  reserved  riirhts  of  the  States,  and  the  supremacy  of  the  Fed- 
eral Government  within  the  limits  of  the  Constitution  will  ever  form 
The  true  basis  of  our  liberties,  and  can  never  be  surrendered  without 
destroying  that  balance  of  rights  and  powers  which  enables  a  conti- 
nent to  be  developed  in  peace,  and  social  order  to  be  maintained  by 


DOCUMENTARY    HISTORY    OF   THE   EPOCH.  473 

means  of  local  self-government.  But  it  is  indispensable  for  the 
practical  application  and  enforcement  of  these  fundamental  princi- 
ples that  the  government  should  not  always  be  controlled  by  one 
political  party.  Frequent  change  of  administration  is  as  necessary 
as  constant  recurrence  to  the  popular  will.  Otherwise,  abuses  grow, 
and  the  Government,  instead  of  being  carried  on  for  the  general  wel- 
fare, becomes  an  instrumentality  for  imposing  heavy  burdens  on  the 
many  who  are  governed,  for  the  benefit  of  the  few  who  govern.  Pub- 
lic servants  thus  become  arbitrary  rulers.  This  is  now  the  condition 
of  the  country;  hence  a  change  is  demanded. 

The  Republican  party,  so  far  as  principle  is  concerned,  is  a  remi- 
niscence. In  practice  it  is  an  organization  for  enriching  those  who 
control  its  machinery.  The  frauds  and  jobbery  which  have  been 
brought  to  light  in  every  department  of  the  Government  are  suffi- 
cient to  have  called  for  reform  within  the  Republican  party;  yet  those 
in  authority,  made  reckless  by  the  long  possession  of  power,  have 
succumbed  to  its  corrupting  influence  and  have  placed  in  nomination 
a  ticket  against  which  the  independent  portion  of  the  party  are  in 
open  revolt.  Therefore,  a  change  is  demanded.  Such  a  change  was 
alike  necessary  in  1876,  but  the  will  of  the  people  was  then  defeated 
by  a  fraud  which  can  never  be  forgotten  nor  condoned.  Again,  ill 
1880,  the  change  demanded  by  the  people  was  defeated  by  the  lavish 
use  of  money  contributed  by  unscrupulous  contractors  and  shame- 
less jobbers,  who  had  bargained  for  unlawful  profits  or  high  office. 
The  Kepublican  party,  during  its  legal,  its  stolen,  and  its  bought 
tenures  of  power,  has  steadily  decayed  in  moral  character  and  politi- 
cal capacity.  Its  platform  promises  are  now  a  list  of  its  past  failures. 
It  demands  the  restoration  of  our  navy — it  has  squandered  hundreds 
of  millions  to  create  a  navy  that  does  not  exist.  It  calls  upon  Con- 
gress to  remove  the  burdens  under  which  American  shipping  has 
been  depressed — it  imposed  and  continued  those  burdens.  It  professes 
the  policy  of  reserving  the  public  lands  for  small  holdings  by  actual 
settlers — it  has  given  away  the  people's  heritage  till  now  a  few  rail- 
roads and  non-resident  aliens,  individual  and  corporate,  possess  a 
larger  area  than  that  of  all  our  farms  between  the  two  seas.  It  pro- 
fesses a  preference  for  free  institutions — it  organized  and  tried  to  le- 
galize a  control  of  State  elections  by  Federal  troops.  It  professes  a 
desire  to  elevate  labor — it  has  subjected  American  workingmen  to 
the  competition  of  convict  and  imported  contract  labor.  It  professes 
gratitude  to  all  who  were  disabled  or  died  in  the  war,  leaving  widows 
and  orphans — it  left  to  a  Democratic  House  of  Representatives  the 
first  effort  to  equalize  both  bounties  and  pensions.  It  proffers  a 
pledge  to  correct  the  irregularities  of  our  tariff — it  created  and  has 


474  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

continued  them.  Its  own  tariff  commission  confessed  the  need  of 
more  than  20  per  cent,  reduction — its  Congress  gave  a  reduction  of 
less  than  4  per  cent.  It  professes  the  protection  of  American  manu- 
factures— it  has  subjected  them  to  an  increasing  flood  of  manufactured 
goods  and  a  hopeless  competition  with  manufacturing  nations,  not 
one  of  which  taxes  raw  materials.  It  professes  to  protect  all  Ameri- 
can industries — it  has  impoverished  many  to  subsidize  a  few.  It 
professes  the  protection  of  American  labor — it  has  depleted  the  re- 
turns of  American  agriculture,  an  industry  followed  by  half  our 
people.  It  professes  the  equality  of  all  men  before  the  law,  attempt- 
ing to  fix  the  status  of  colored  citizens — the  acts  of  its  Congress  were 
overset  by  the  decisions  of  its  courts.  It  "  accepts  anew  the  duty  of 
leading  in  the  work  of  progress  and  reform  "  —its  caught  criminals 
are  permitted  to  escape  through  contrived  delays  or  actual  conniv- 
ance in  the  prosecution.  Honeycombed  with  corruption,  outbreak- 
ing exposures  no  longer  shock  its  moral  sense.  Its  honest  members, 
its  independent  journals,  no  longer  maintain  a  successful  contest  for 
authority  .in  its  councils  or  a  veto  upon  bad  nominations.  That 
change  is  necessary  is  proved  by  an  existing  surplus  of  more  than 
$100,000,000,  which  has  yearly  been  collected  from  a  suffering  peo- 
ple. Unnecessary  taxation  is  unjust  taxation.  We  denounce  the 
Republican  party  for  having  failed  to  relieve  the  people  from  crush- 
ing war  taxes,  which  have  paralyzed  business,  crippled  industry,  and 
deprived  labor  of  employment  and  of  just  reward. 

The  Democracy  pledges  itself  to  purify  the  Administration  from 
corruption,  to  restore  economy,  to  revive  respect  for  law,  and  to  re- 
duce taxation  to  the  lowest  limit  consistent  with  due  regard  to  the 
preservation  of  the  faith  of  the  Nation  to  its  creditors  and  pensioners. 
Knowing  full  well,  however,  that  legislation  affecting  the  operations 
of  the  people  should  be  cautious  and  conservative  in  method,  not  in 
advance  of  public  opinion,  but  responsive  to  its  demands,  the  Demo- 
cratic party  is  pledged  to  revise  the  tariff  in  a  spirit  of  fairness  to 
all  interests.  But,  in  making  reduction  in  taxes,  it  is  not  proposed 
to  injure  any  domestic  industries,  but  rather  to  promote  their  healthy 
growth.  From  the  foundation  of  this  Government  taxes  collected 
at  the  Custom  House  have  been  the  chief  source  of  Federal  revenue. 
Such  they  must  continue  to  be.  Moreover,  many  industries  have 
come  to  rely  upon  legislation  for  successful  continuance,  so  that  any 
change  of  law  must  be  at  every  step  regardful  of  the  labor  and  capi- 
tal thus  involved.  The  process  of  the  reform  must  be  subject  in  the 
execution  to  this  plain  dictate  of  justice— all  taxation  shall  be  lim- 
ited to  the  requirements  of  economical  government.  The  necessary 
reduction  in  taxation  can  and  must  be  effected  without  depriving 


DOCUMENTARY    HISTORY    OF   THE   EPOCH.  475 

American  labor  of  the  ability  to  compete  successfully  with  foreign 
labor,  and  without  imposing  lower  rates  of  duty  than  will  be  ample 
to  cover  any  increased  cost  of  production  which  may  exist  in  conse- 
quence of  the  higher  rate  of  wages  prevailing  in  this  country.  Suffi- 
cient revenue  to  pay  all  the  expenses  of  the  Federal  Government 
economically  administered,  including  pensions,  interest,  and  prin- 
cipal of  the  public  debt,  can  be  got  under  our  present  system  of 
taxation  from  Custom  House  taxes  on  fewer  imported  articles,  bear 
ing  heaviest  on  articles  of  luxury,  and  bearing  lightest  on  articles  of 
necessity.  We,  therefore,  denounce  the  abuses  of  the  existing  tariff; 
and  subject  to  the  preceding  limitations,  we  demand  that  Federal 
taxation  shall  be  exclusively  for  public  purposes,  and  shall  not  exceed 
the  needs  of  the  Government  economically  administered. 

The  system  of  direct  taxation  known  as  the  "  internal  revenue  "  is 
a  war  tax,  and  so  long  as  the  law  continues,  the  money  derived  there- 
from should  be  sacredly  devoted  to  the  relief  of  the  people  from  the 
remaining  burdens  of  the  war,  and  be  made  a  fund  to  defray  the  ex- 
pense of  the  care  and  comfort  of  worthy  soldiers  disabled  in  line  of 
duty  in  the  wars  of  the  Republic,  and  for  the  payment  of  such  pen- 
sions as  Congress  may  from  time  to  time  grant  to  such  soldiers,  a  like 
fund  for  the  sailors  having  been  already  provided;  and  any  surplus 
should  be  paid  into  the  Treasury. 

We  favor  an  American  continental  policy  based  upon  more  intimate 
commercial  and  political  relations  with  the  fifteen  sister  republics  of 
North,  Central,  and  South  America,  but  entangling  alliances  with 
none. 

We  believe  in  honest  money,  the  gold  and  silver  coinage  of  the  Con- 
stitution, and  a  circulating  medium  convertible  into  such  money  with- 
out loss. 

Asserting  the  equality  of  all  men  before  the  law,  we  hold  that  it  is 
the  duty  of  the  Government  in  its  dealings  with  the  people  to  mete 
out  equal  and  exact  justice  to  all  citizens  of  whatever  nativit}7,  race, 
color,  or  persuasion,  religious  or  political. 

We  believe  in  a  free  ballot  and  a  fair  count,  and  we  recall  to  the 
memory  of  the  people  the  noble  struggle  of  the  Democrats  in  the 
Forty-fifth  and  Forty-sixth  Congresses,  by  which  a  reluctant  Repub- 
lican opposition  was  compelled  to  assent  to  legislation  making  every- 
where illegal  the  presence  of  troops  at  the  polls,  as  the  conclusive 
proof  that  a  Democratic  Administration  will  preserve  liberty  with 
order. 

The  selection  of  Federal  officers  for  the  Territories  should  be  re- 
stricted to  citizens  previously  resident  therein. 

We  oppose  sumptuary  laws  which  vex  the  citizen  and  interfere  with 
individual  liberty. 


476  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY, 

We  favor  honest  civil-service  reform  and  the  compensation  of  all 
United  States  officers  by  fixed  salaries;  the  separation  of  church  and 
state,  and  the  diffusion  of  free  education  by  common  schools,  so  that 
every  child  in  the  land  may  be  taught  the  rights  and  duties  of  citizen- 
ship. 

While  we  favor  all  legislation  which  will  tend  to  the  equitable  dis- 
tribution of  property,  to  the  prevention  of  monopoly,  and  to  the 
strict  enforcement  of  individual  rights  against  corporate  abuses,  \ve 
hold  that  the  welfare  of  society  depends  upon  a  scrupulous  regard 
for  the  rights  of  property  as  defined  by  law.  We  believe  that  labor 
is  best  rewarded  where  it  is  freest  and  most  enlightened.  It  should 
therefore  be  fostered  and  cherished.  We  favor  the  repeal  of  all  laws 
restricting  the  free  action  of  labor,  and  the  enactment  of  laws  by 
which  labor  organizations  may  be  incorporated,  and  of  all  such  legis- 
lation as  will  tend  to  enlighten  the  people  as  to  the  true  relations  of 
capital  and  labor. 

WTe  believe  that  the  public  land  ought,  as  far  as  possible,  to  be 
kept  as  homesteads  for  actual  settlers;  that  all  unearned  lands  here- 
tofore improvidently  granted  to  railroad  corporations  by  the  action 
of  the  Republican  party  should  be  restored  to  the  public  domain,  and 
that  no  more  grants  of  land  shall  be  made  to  corporations,  or  be 
allowed  to  fall  into  the  ownership  of  alien  absentees. 

We  are  opposed  to  all  propositions  which,  upon  any  pretext,  would 
convert  the  General  Government  into  a  machine  for  collecting  taxes 
to  be  distributed  among  the  States  or  the  citizens  thereof. 

In  reaffirming  the  declaration  of  the  Democratic  platform  of  1856, 
that  the  liberal  principles  embodied  by  Jefferson  in  the  Declaration 
of  Independence,  and  sanctioned  in  the  Constitution,  which  makes 
ours  the  land  of  liberty  and  the  asylum  of  the  oppressed  of  every 
nation,  have  ever  been  cardinal  principles  in  the  Democratic 
faith,  wTe  nevertheless  do  not  sanction  the  importation  of  foreign  la- 
bor or  the  admission  of  servile  races,  unfitted  by  habits,  training, 
religion,  or  kindred,  for  absorption  into  the  great  body  of  our  people, 
or  for  the  citizenship  which  our  laws  confer.  American  civilization 
demands  that  against  the  immigration  or  importation  of  Mongolians 
to  these  shores  our  gates  be  closed. 

The  Democratic  party  insists  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  Govern- 
ment to  protect  with  equal  fidelity  and  vigilance  the  rights  of  its 
citizens,  native  and  naturalized,  at  home  and  abroad;  and  to  the  end 
that  this  protection  may  be  assured,  United  States  papers  of  naturali- 
zation issued  by  courts  of  competent  jurisdiction  must  be  respected 
by  the  executive  and  legislative  departments  of  our  own  Govern- 
ment and  all  foreign  powers.  It  is  an  imperative  duty  of  this  Gov- 


DOCUMENTARY    HISTORY   OF   THE   EPOCH.  477 

eminent  to  efficiently  protect  all  the  rights  of  persons  and  property 
of  every  American  citizen  in  foreign  lands,  and  demand  and  enforce 
full  reparation  for  any  invasion  thereof.  An  American  citizen  is  only 
responsible  to  his  own  Government  for  any  act  done  in  his  own  country 
or  under  her  flag,  and  can  only  be  tried  therefor  on  her  own  soil  and 
according  to  her  laws;  and  no  power  exists  in  this  Government  to 
expatriate  an  American  citizen  to  be  tried  in  any  foreign  land  for  any 
such  act. 

This  country  has  never  had  a  well-defined  and  executed  foreign 
policy  save  under  Democratic  administration.  That  policy  has  ever 
been  in  regard  to  foreign  nations,  so  long  as  they  do  no  act  detri- 
mental to  the  interests  of  the  country  or  hurtful  to  our  citizens,  to 
let  them  alone;  that  as  a  result  of  this  policy  we  recall  the  acquisition 
of  Louisiana,  Florida,  California,  and  of  the  adjacent  Mexican  terri- 
tory by  purchase  alone,  and  contrast  these  grand  acquisitions  of 
Democratic  statesmanship  with  the  purchase  of  Alaska,  the  sole  fruit 
of  a  Republican  administration  of  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century. 

The  Federal  Government  should  care  for  and  improve  the  Missis- 
sippi River  and  other  great  waterways  of  the  Republic,  so  as  to  secure 
for  the  interior  States  easy  and  cheap  transportation  to  tide  water. 

Under  a  long  period  of  Democratic  rule  and  policy  our  merchant 
marine  was  fast  overtaking  and  on  the  point  of  outstripping  that  of 
Great  Britain;  under  twenty  years  of  Republican  rule  and  policy  our 
commerce  has  been  left  to  British  bottoms,  and  the  American  flag 
has  almost  been  swrept  off  the  high  seas.  Instead  of  the  Republican 
party's  British  policy,  wre  demand  for  the  people  of  the  United  States 
an  American  policy.  Under  Democratic  rule  and  policy  our  mer- 
chants and  sailors,  flying  the  Stars  and  Stripes  in  every  port,  success- 
fully searched  out  a  market  for  the  varied  products  of  American  in- 
dustry; under  a  quarter  century  of  Republican  rule  and  policy,  de- 
spite our  manifest  advantage  over  all  other  nations  in  high-paid  la- 
bor, favorable  climates,  and  teeming  soils;  despite  freedom  of  trade 
among  all  these  United  States;  despite  their  population  by  the  fore- 
most races  of  men,  and  an  annual  immigration  of  the  young,  thrifty, 
and  adventurous  of  all  nations;  despite  our  freedom  here  from  the 
inherited  burdens  of  life  and  industry  in  Old  World  monarchies, 
their  costly  war  navies,  their  vast  tax-consuming,  non-producing 
standing  armies;  despite  twenty  years  of  peace,  that  Republican  rule 
and  policy  have  managed  to  surrender  to  Great  Britain,  along  with 
our  commerce,  the  control  of  the  markets  of  the  world.  Instead  of  the 
Republican  party's  British  policy,  we  demand,  in  behalf  of  the  Ameri- 
can Democracy,  an  American  policy.  Instead  of  the  Republican 
party's  discredited  scheme  and  false  pretense  of  friendship  for  Ameri- 


478  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

can  labor,  expressed  by  imposing  taxes,  we  demand,  in  behalf  of  the 
Democracy,  freedom  for  American  labor  by  reducing  taxes,  to  the 
end  that  these  United  States  may  compete  with  unhindered  powers 
for  the  primacy  among  nations  in  all  the  arts  of  peace  and  fruits  of 
liberty. 

With  profound  regret  we  have  been  apprised  by  the  venerable 
statesman  through  whose  person  was  struck  that  blow  at  the  vital 
principle  of  republics,  acquiescence  in  the  will  of  the  majority,  that 
he  can  not  permit  us  again  to  place  in  his  hands  the  leadership  of 
the  Democratic  hosts,  for  the  reason  that  the  achievement  of  reform 
in  the  administration  of  the  Federal  Government  is  an  undertaking 
now  too  heavy  for  his  age  and  failing  strength.  Rejoicing  that  his 
life  has  been  prolonged  until  the  general  judgment  of  our  fellow- 
countrymen  is  united  in  the  wish  that  that  wrong  were  righted  in 
his  person,  for  the  Democracy  of  the  United  States  we  offer  to  him,  in 
his  withdrawal  from  public  cares,  not  only  our  respectful  sympathy 
and  esteem,  but  also  that  best  homage  of  freemen,  the  pledge  of  our 
devotion  to  the  principles  and  the  cause  now  inseparable  from  the 
name  of  Samuel  J.  Tilden. 

With  this  statement  of  the  hopes,  principles,  and  purposes  of  the 
Democratic  party,  the  great  issue  of  reform  and  change  in  adminis- 
tration is  submitted  to  the  people,  in  calm  confidence  that  the  popular 
voice  will  pronounce  in  favor  of  new  men  and  new  and  more  favorable 
conditions  for  the  growth  of  industry,  the  extension  of  trade  and  em- 
ployment, and  due  reward  of  labor  and  of  capital,  and  the  general 
welfare  of  the  whole  country. 

REPUBLICAN  PLATFORM,  1888. 

The  Republicans  of  the  United  States,  assembled  by  their  delegates 
in  National  Convention,  pause  on  the  threshold  of  their  proceedings 
to  honor  the  memory  of  their  first  great  leader,  the  immortal  cham- 
pion of  liberty  and  the  rights  of  the  people,  Abraham  Lincoln,  and 
to  cover  also  with  wreaths  of  imperishable  remembrance  and  grati- 
tude the  heroic  names  of  our  later  leaders,  who  have  more  recently 
been  called  away  from  our  councils — Grant,  Garfield,  Arthur,  Logan, 
Conkling.  May  their  memories  be  faithfully  cherished.  We  also 
recall  with  our  greetings  and  with  prayer  for  his  recovery  the  name 
of  one  of  our  living  heroes,  whose  memory  will  be  treasured  in  the 
history  both  of  Republicans  and  of  the  Republic — the  name  of  that 
noble  soldier  and  favorite  child  of  victory,  Philip  H.  Sheridan. 

In  the  spirit  of  those  great  leaders  and  of  our  own  devotion  to 
human  liberty,  and  with  that  hostility  to  all  forms  of  despotism  and 
oppression  which  is  the  fundamental  idea  of  the  Republican  party, 
we  sent  fraternal  congratulations  to  our  fellow-Americans  of  Brazil 


DOCUMENTARY   HISTORY   OF   THE   EPOCH.  479 

upon  their  great  act  of  emancipation,  which  completed  the  abolition 
of  slavery  throughout  the  two  American  continents.  We  earnestly 
hope  that  we  may  soon  congratulate  our  fellow-citizens  of  Irish  birth 
upon  the  peaceful  recovery  of  Home  Rule  for  Ireland. 

We  reaffirm  our  unswerving  devotion  to  the  National  Constitution 
and  to  the  indissoluble  Union  of  the  States;  to  the  autonomy  reserved 
to  the  States  under  the  Constitution;  to  the  personal  rights  and  lib- 
erties of  citizens  in  all  the  States  and  Territories  in  the  Union,  and 
especially  to  the  supreme  and  sovereign  right  of  every  lawful  citizen, 
rich  or  poor,  native  or  foreign  born,  white  or  black,  to  cast  one  free 
ballot  in  public  elections,  and  to  have  that  ballot  duly  counted.  We 
hold  the  free  and  honest  popular  ballot  and  the  just  and  equal  repre- 
sentation of  all  the  people  to  be  the  foundation  of  our  republican  Gov- 
ernment, and  demand  effective  legislation  to  secure  the  integrity  and 
purity  of  elections,  which  are  the  fountains  of  all  public  authority. 
We  charge  that  the  present  Administration  and  the  Democratic  ma- 
jority in  Congress  owe  their  existence  to  the  suppression  of  the  ballot 
by  a  criminal  nullification  of  the  Constitution  and  Laws  of  the  United 
States. 

We  are  uncompromisingly  in  favor  of  the  American  system  of  Pro- 
tection; we  protest  against  its  destruction,  as  proposed  by  the  Presi- 
dent and  his  party.  They  serve  the  interests  of  Europe;  we  will  sup- 
port the  interests  of  America.  We  accept  the  issue  and  confidently 
appeal  to  the  people  for  their  judgment.  The  protective  system  must 
be  maintained.  Its  abandonment  has  always  been  followed  by  gen- 
eral disaster  to  all  interests  except  those  of  the  usurer  and  the  sheriff. 
We  denounce  the  Mills  bill  as  destructive  to  the  general  business,  the 
labor,  and  the  farming  interests  of  the  country,  and  we  heartily 
indorse  the  consistent  and  patriotic  action  of  the  Republican  Repre- 
sentatives in  Congress  in  opposing  its  passage. 

We  condemn  the  proposition  of  the  Democratic  party  to  place  wool 
on  the  free  list,  and  we  insist  that  the  duties  thereon  shall  be  adjusted 
and  maintained  so  as  to  furnish  full  and  adequate  protection  to  that 
industry  throughout  the  United  States. 

The  Republican  party  would  effect  all  needed  reduction  of  the  Na- 
tional revenue  by  repealing  the  taxes  upon  tobacco,  which  are  an 
annoyance  and  burden  to  agriculture,  and  the  tax  upon  spirits  used 
in  the  arts  and  for  mechanical  purposes,  and  by  such  revision  of  the 
tariff  laws  as  will  tend  to  check  imports  of  such  articles  as  are  pro- 
duced by  our  people,  the  production  of  which  gives  employment  to  our 
labor,  and  releases  from  import,  duties  those  articles  of  foreign  pro- 
duction (except  luxuries)  the  like  of  which  can  not  be  produced  at 
home.  If  there  shall  still  remain  a  larger  revenue  than  is  requisite  for 


480  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

the  wants  of  the  Government,  we  favor  the  entire  repeal  of  the  inter- 
nal taxes  rather  than  the  surrender  of  any  part  of  our  protective  sys- 
tem at  the  joint  behest  of  the  whisky  ring  and  the  agents  of  foreign 
manufacturers. 

We  declare  our  hostility  to  the  introduction  into  this  country  of 
foreign  contract  labor,  and  of  Chinese  labor,  alien  to  our  civilization 
and  Constitution,  and  we  demand  the  rigid  enforcement  of  the  exist- 
ing laws  against  it,  and  favor  such  immediate  legislation  as  will  ex- 
clude such  labor  from  our  shores. 

We  declare  our  opposition  to  all  combinations  of  capital  organized 
in  trusts  or  otherwise,  to  control  arbitrarily  the  condition  of  trade 
among  our  citizens;  and  we  recommend  to  Congress,  and  the  State 
Legislatures,  in  their  respective  jurisdictions,  such  legislation  as  will 
prevent  the  execution  of  all  schemes  to  oppress  the  people  by  undue 
charges  on  their  supplies,  or  by  unjust  rates  for  the  transportation 
of  their  products  to  market.  We  approve  the  legislation  by  Congress 
to  prevent  alike  unjust  burden  and  unfair  discriminations  between 
the  States. 

We  reaffirm  the  policy  of  appropriating  the  public  lands  of  the 
United  States  to  be  homesteads  for  American  citizens  and  settlers — 
not  aliens — which  the  Republican  party  established  in  1862,  against 
the  persistent  opposition  of  the  Democrats  in  Congress,  and  which 
has  brought  our  great  Western  domain  into  such  magnificent  devel- 
opment. The  restoration  of  unearned  railroad  land  grants  to  the 
public  domain  for  the  use  of  actual  settlers,  which  was  begun  under 
the  administration  of  President  Arthur,  should  be  continued.  We 
deny  that  the  Democratic  party  has  ever  restored  one  acre  to  the 
people,  but  declare  that  by  the  joint  action  of  Republicans  and  Demo- 
crats about  twenty-eight  millions  of  acres  of  unearned  lands,  origi- 
nally granted  for  the  construction  of  railroads,  have  been  restored 
to  the  public  domain,  in  pursuance  of  the  conditions  inserted  by  the 
Republican  party  in  the  original  grants.  WTe  charge  the  Democratic 
Administration  with  failure  to  execute  the  laws  securing  to  settlers 
titles  to  their  homesteads,  and  with  using  appropriations  made  for 
that  purpose,  to  harass  innocent  settlers  with  spies  and  persecutions, 
under  the  false  pretense  of  exposing  frauds  and  vindicating  the  law. 

The  government  by  Congress  of  the  Territories  is  based  upon  neces- 
sity, only  to  the  end  that  they  may  become  States  in  the  Union ;  there- 
fore, whenever  the  conditions  of  population,  material  resources,  pub- 
lic intelligence,  and  morality  are  such  as  to  insure  a  stable  local 
government  therein,  the  people  of  such  Territories  should  be  per- 
mitted, as  a  right  inherent  in  them,  to  form  for  themselves  Constitu- 
tions and  State  Governments,  and  be  admitted  into  the  Union.  Pend- 


DOCUMENTARY    HISTORY    OF   THE   EPOCH.  481 

ing  the  preparation  for  Statehood,  all  officers  thereof  should  be  se- 
lected from  the  bona  fide  residents  and  citizens  of  the  Territory  where- 
in they  are  to  serve.  South  Dakota  should  of  right  be  immediately 
admitted  as  a  State  in  the  Union,  under  the  Constitution  framed  and 
adopted  by  her  people,  and  we  heartily  indorse  the  action  of  the  Re- 
publican Senate  in  twice  passing  bills  for  her  admission.  The  refusal 
of  the  Democratic  House  of  Representatives,  for  partisan  purposes, 
to  favorably  consider  these  bills,  is  a  willful  violation  of  the  sacred 
American  principle  of  local  self-government,  and  merits  the  condem- 
nation of  all  just  men.  The  pending  bills  in  the  Senate  to  enable 
the  people  of  Washington,  North  Dakota,  and  Montana  Territories 
to  form  constitutions  and  establish  State  Governments  should  be 
passed  without  unnecessary  delay.  The  Republican  party  pledges  it- 
self to  do  all  in  its  power  to  facilitate  the  admission  of  the  Territories 
of  New  Mexico,  Wyoming,  Idaho,  and  Arizona  to  the  enjoyment  of 
self-government  as  States,  such  of  them  as  are  now  qualified,  as  soon 
as  possible,  and  the  others  as  soon  as  they  may  become  so. 

The  political  power  of  the  Mormon  Church  in  the  Territories,  as 
exercised  in  the  past,  is  a  menace  to  free  institutions,  too  dangerous 
to  be  longer  suffered.  Therefore,  we  pledge  the  Republican  party 
to  appropriate  legislation  asserting  the  sovereignty  of  the  Nation  in 
all  Territories  where  the  same  is  questioned, and  in  furtherance  of  that 
end,  to  place  upon  the  statute  books  legislation  stringent  enough  to 
divorce  the  political  from  the  ecclesiastical  power,  and  thus  stamp  out 
the  attendant  wickedness  of  polygamy. 

The  Republican  party  is  in  favor  of  the  use  of  both  gold  and  silver 
as  money,  and  condemns  the  policy  of  the  Democratic  Administration 
in  its  efforts  to  demonetize  silver. 

We  demand  the  reduction  of  letter  postage  to  one  cent  per  ounce. 

In  a  republic  like  ours,  where  the  citizen  is  the  sovereign  and  the  of- 
ficial the  servant,  where  no  power  is  exercised  except  by  the  will  of  the 
people,  it  is  important  that  the  sovereign — the  people — should  possess 
intelligence.  The  free  school  is  the  promoter  of  that  intelligence  which 
is  to  preserve  us  as  a  free  Nation;  therefore,  the  State  or  Nation, 
or  both  combined,  should  support  free  institutions  of  learning  suffi- 
cient to  afford  every  child  growing  in  the  land  the  opportunity  of  a 
good  common-school  education. 

We  earnestly  recommend  that  prompt  action  be  taken  by  Congress 
in  the  enactment  of  such  legislation  as  will  best  secure  the  rehabili- 
tation of  our  American  merchant  marine,  and  we  protest  against  the 
passage  by  Congress  of  a  free  ship  bill,  as  calculated  to  work  injustice 
to  labor,  by  lessening  the  wages  of  those  engaged  in  preparing  ma- 
terials, as  well  as  those  directly  employed  in  our  shipyards.  We  de- 


482  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

mand  appropriations  for  the  early  rebuilding  of  our  navy,  for  the 
construction  of  coast  fortifications  and  modern  ordnance,  and  other 
approved  modern  means  of  defense  for  the  protection  of  our  defense- 
less harbors  and  cities,  for  the  payment  of  just  pensions  to  our 
soldiers,  for  necessary  works  of  National  importance  in  the  improve- 
ment of  harbors  and  the  channels  of  internal,  coastwise,  and  foreign 
commerce,  for  the  encouragement  of  the  shipping  interests  of  the 
Atlantic,  Gulf,  and  Pacific  States,  as  well  as  for  the  payment  of  the 
maturing  public  debt.  This  policy  will  give  employment  to  our  labor, 
activity  to  our  various  industries,  increase  the  security  of  our  country, 
promote  trade,  open  new  and  direct  markets  for  our  produce,  and 
cheapen  the  cost  of  transportation.  We  affirm  this  to  be  far  better  for 
our  country  than  the  Democratic  policy  of  loaning  the  Government's 
money  without  interest  to  "  pet  banks." 

The  conduct  of  foreign  affairs  by  the  present  Administration  has 
been  distinguished  by  its  inefficiency  and  its  cowardice.  Having 
withdrawn  from  the  Senate  all  pending  treaties  made  by  Republican 
administrations  for  the  removal  of  foreign  burdens  and  restrictions 
upon  our  commerce  and  for  its  extension  into  better  markets,  it  has 
neither  effected  nor  proposed  any  others  in  their  etead.  Professing 
adherence  to  the  Monroe  doctrine,  it  has  seen  with  idle  complacency 
the  extension  of  foreign  influence  in  Central  America,  and  of  foreign 
trade  everywhere  among  our  neighbors.  It  has  refused  to  charter, 
sanction,  or  encourage  any  American  organization  for  constructing 
the  Nicaragua  Canal,  a  work  of  vital  importance  to  the  maintenance 
of  the  Monroe  doctrine,  and  of  our  National  influence  in  Central  and 
South  America,  and  necessary  for  the  development  of  trade  with  our 
Pacific  territory,  with  South  America,  and  with  the  islands  and  fur- 
ther coasts  of  the  Pacific  Ocean. 

We  arraign  the  present  Democratic  Administration  for  its  weak 
and  unpatriotic  treatment  of  the  fisheries  question,  and  its  pusillani- 
mous surrender  of  the  essential  privileges  to  which  our  fishing  vessels 
are  entitled  in  Canadian  ports  under  the  treaty  of  1818,  the  reciprocal 
maritime  legislation  of  1830,  and  the  comity  of  nations,  and  which 
Canadian  fishing  vessels  receive  in  the  ports  of  the  United  States. 

We  condemn  the  policy  of  the  present  Administration  and  the 
Democratic  majority  in  Congress  toward  our  fisheries  as  unfriendly 
and  conspicuously  unpatriotic,  and  as  tending  to  destroy  a  valuable 
National  industry  and  an  indispensable  source  of  defense  against  a 
foreign  enemy. 

"  The  name  of  American  applies  alike  to  all  citizens  of  the  Republic, 
and  imposes  upon  all  alike  the  same  obligation  of  obedience  to  the 
laws.  At  the  same  time  that  citizenship  is  and  must  be  the  panoply 


DOCUMENTARY   HISTORY   OF   THE   EPOCH.  483 

and  safeguard  of  him  who  wears  it,  and  protect  him,  whether  high  or 
low,  rich  or  poor,  in  all  his  civil  rights.  It  should  and  must  afford 
him  protection  at  home,  and  follow  and  protect  him  abroad,  in  what- 
ever land  he  may  be  on  a  lawful  errand." 

The  men  who  abandoned  the  Republican  party  in  1884  and  continue 
to  adhere  to  the  Democratic  party,  have  deserted  not  only  the  cause 
of  honest  government,  of  sound  finance,  of  freedom  and  purity  of  the 
ballot,  but  especially  have  deserted  the  cause  of  reform  in  the  civil 
service.  We  will  not  fail  to  keep  our  pledges  because  they  have 
broken  theirs,  or  because  their  candidate  has  broken  his.  We  there- 
fore repeat  our  declaration  of  1884,  to  wit :  "  The  reform  of  the  civil 
service,  auspiciously  begun  under  the  Republican  administration, 
should  be  completed  by  the  further  extension  of  the  reform  system, 
already  established  by  law,  to  all  the  grades  of  the  service  to  which 
it  is  applicable.  The  spirit  and  purpose  of  the  reform  should  be  ob- 
served in  all  executive  appointments,  and  all  laws  at  variance  with 
the  object  of  existing  reform  legislation  should  be  repealed,  to  the 
end  that  the  dangers  to  free  institutions  which  lurk  in  the  power  of 
official  patronage  may  be  wisely  and  effectually  avoided." 

The  gratitude  of  the  Nation  to  the  defenders  of  the  Union  can  not 
be  measured  by  laws.  The  legislation  of  Congress  should  conform  to 
the  pledge  made  by  a  loyal  people,  and  be  so  enlarged  and  extended 
as  to  provide  against  the  possibility  that  any  man  who  honorably 
wore  the  Federal  uniform  shall  become  an  inmate  of  an  almshouse 
or  dependent  upon  private  charity.  In  the  presence  of  an  overflow- 
ing treasury  it  would  be  a  public  scandal  to  do  less  for  those  whose 
valorous  service  preserved  the  Government.  We  denounce  the  hostile 
spirit  shown  by  President  Cleveland  in  his  numerous  vetoes  of  meas- 
ures for  pension  relief,  and  the  action  of  the  Democratic  House  of 
Representatives  in  refusing  even  a  consideration  of  general  pension 
legislation. 

In  support  of  the  principles  herewith  enunciated  we  invite  the 
co-operation  of  patriotic  men  of  all  parties,  and  especially  of  all  work- 
ingmen,  whose  prosperity  is  seriously  threatened  by  the  free-trade 
policy  of  the  present  Administration. 

DEMOCRATIC  PLATFORM,   1888. 

The  Democratic  party  of  the  United  States,  in  National  Convention 
assembled,  renews  the  pledge  of  its  fidelity  to  Democratic  faith,  and 
reaffirms  the  platform  adopted  by  its  representatives  in  the  Conven- 
tion of  1884,  and  indorses  the  views  expressed  by  President  Cleve- 
land in  his  last  annual  message  to  Congress  as  the  correct  interpreta- 


484  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

tion  of  that  platform  upon  the  question  of  tariff  reduction;  and  also 
indorses  the  efforts  of  our  Democratic  Representatives  in  Congress 
to  secure  a  reduction  of  excessive  taxation. 

Chief  among  its  principles  of  party  faith  are  the  maintenance  of  an 
indissoluble  Union  of  free  and  indestructible  States,  now  about  to 
enter  upon  its  second  century  of  unexampled  progress  and  renown: 
devotion  to  a  plan  of  government  regulated  by  a  written  constitution 
strictly  specifying  every  granted  power,  and  expressly  reserving  to 
the  States  or  people  the  entire  ungranted  residue  of  power;  the  en- 
couragement of  a  jealous,  popular  vigilance  directed  to  all  who  have 
been  chosen  for  brief  terms  to  enact  and  execute  the  laws  and  are 
charged  with  the  duty  of  preserving  peace,  insuring  equality,  and 
establishing  justice. 

The  Democratic  party  welcomes  an  exacting  scrutiny  of  the  admin- 
istration of  the  executive  power,  which  four  years  ago  was  committed 
to  its  trust  in  the  election  of  Grover  Cleveland  as  President  of  the 
United  States,  but  it  challenges  the  most  searching  inquiry  con- 
cerning its  fidelity  and  devotion  to  the  pledges  which  then  invited 
the  suffrages  of  the  people.  During  a  most  critical  period  of  our 
financial  affairs,  resulting  from  over-taxation,  the  anomalous  con- 
dition of  our  currency,  and  a  public  debt  unmatured,  it  has,  by  the 
adoption  of  a  wise  and  conservative  course,  not  only  averted  disaster, 
but  greatly  promoted  the  prosperity  of  the  people. 

It  has  reversed  the  improvident  and  unwise  policy  of  the  Repub- 
lican party  touching  the  public  domain,  and  has  reclaimed  from 
corporations  and  syndicates,  alien  and  domestic,  and  restored  to  the 
people  nearly  one  hundred  millions  of  acres  of  valuable  land,  to  be 
sacredly  held  as  homesteads  for  our  citizens. 

While  carefully  guarding  the  interests  of  the  taxpayers  and  con- 
forming strictly  to  the  principles  of  justice  and  equity,  it  has  paid 
out  more  for  pensions  and  bounties  to  the  soldiers  and  sailors  of  the 
Republic  than  was  ever  paid  before  during  an  equal  period. 

It  has  adopted  and  consistently  pursued  a  firm  and  prudent  foreign 
policy,  preserving  peace  with  all  nations,  while  scrupulously  main- 
taining all  the  rights  and  interests  of  our  own  Government  and  people 
at  home  and  abroad.  The  exclusion  from  our  shores  of  Chinese  labor- 
ers has  been  effectually  secured  under  the  provision  of  a  treaty,  the 
operation  of  which  has  been  postponed  by  the  action  of  a  Republican 
majority  in  the  Senate. 

Honest  reform  in  the  civil  service  has  been  inaugurated  and  main- 
tained by  President  Cleveland,  and  he  has  brought  the  public  service 
to  the  highest  standard  of  efficiency,  not  only  by  rule  and  precept, 
but  by  the  example  of  his  own  untiring  and  unselfish  administration 
of  public  affairs. 


DOCUMENTARY    HISTORY   OF  THE   EPOCH.  485 

In  every  branch  and  department  of  the  Government  under  Demo- 
cratic control,  the  rights  and  the  welfare  of  all  the  people  have  been 
guarded  and  defended;  every  public  interest  has  been  protected,  and 
the  equality  of  all  our  citizens  before  the  law,  without  regard  to  race 
or  color,  has  been  steadfastly  maintained. 

Upon  its  record  thus  exhibited,  and  upon  the  pledge  of  a  continu- 
ance to  the  people  of  these  benefits,  the  Democracy  invokes  a  renewal 
of  public  trust  by  the  re-election  of  a  chief  magistrate  who  has  been 
faithful,  able,  and  prudent. 

We  invoke,  in  addition  to  that  trust,  the  transfer  to  the  Democracy 
of  the  entire  legislative  power. 

The  Republican  party,  controlling  the  Senate  and  resisting  in  both 
houses  of  Congress  a  reformation  of  unjust  and  unequal  tax  laws, 
which  have  outlasted  the  necessities  of  war  and  are  now  undermin- 
ing the  abundance  of  a  long  peace,  deny  to  the  people  equality  before 
the  law  and  the  fairness  and  the  justice  which  are  their  right.  Thus 
the  cry  of  American  labor  for  a  better  share  of  the  rewards  of  indus- 
try is  stifled  with  false  pretenses,  enterprise  is  fettered  and  bound 
down  to  home  markets,  capital  is  disturbed  with  doubt,  and  unequal, 
unjust  laws  can  neither  be  properly  amended  nor  repealed. 

The  Democratic  party  will  continue  with  all  the  power  confided 
to  it  the  struggle  to  reform  these  laws  in  accordance  with  pledges 
of  its  last  platform,  indorsed  at  the  ballot-box  by  the  suffrages  of  the 
people. 

Of  all  the  industrious  freemen  of  our  land  the  immense  majority, 
including  every  tiller  of  the  soil,  gain  no  advantage  from  excessive 
tax  laws,  but  the  price  of  nearly  everything  they  buy  is  increased  by 
the  favoritism  of  an  unequal  system  of  tax  legislation. 

All  unnecessary  taxation  is  unjust  taxation.  It  is  repugnant  to 
the  creed  of  Democracy  that  by  such  taxation  the  cost  of  the  necessa- 
ries of  life  should  be  unjustly  increased  to  all  our  people.  Judged 
by  Democratic  principles,  the  interests  of  the  people  are  betrayed 
when,  by  unnecessary  taxation,  trusts  and  combinations  are  per- 
mitted to  exist,  wThich  while  unduly  enriching  the  few  that  combine, 
rob  the  body  of  our  citizens  by  depriving  them  of  the  benefits  of  nat- 
ural competition.  Every  Democratic  rule  of  governmental  action  is 
violated  when,  through  unnecessary  taxation,  a  vast  sum  of  money, 
far  beyond  the  needs  of  an  economical  administration,  is  drawn  from 
the  people  and  the  channels  of  trade,  and  accumulated  as  a  demoraliz- 
ing surplus  in  the  national  treasury. 

The  money  now  lying  in  the  Federal  treasury,  resulting  from  super- 
fluous taxation,  amounts  to  more  than  $125,000,000,  and  the  surplus 
collected  is  reaching  the  sum  of  more  than  $00,000,000  annually. 


486  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

Debauched  by  this  immense  temptation,  the  remedy  of  the  Republican 
party  is  to  meet  and  exhaust  by  extravagant  appropriations  and  ex- 
penses, whether  constitutional  or  not,  the  accumulation  of  extrava- 
gant taxation.  The  Democratic  policy  is  to  enforce  frugality  in  pub- 
lic expense  and  abolish  unnecessary  taxation.  Our  established  do- 
mestic industries  and  enterprises  should  not  and  need  not  be  endan- 
gered by  a  reduction  and  correction  of  the  burdens  of  taxation.  Oil 
the  contrary,  a  fair  and  careful  revision  of  our  tax  laws,  with  due 
allowance  for  the  difference  between  the  wages  of  American  and 
foreign  labor,  must  promote  and  encourage  every  branch  of  such 
industries  and  enterprises  by  giving  them  assurances  of  an  extended 
market  and  steady  and  continuous  operation.  In  the  interests  of 
American  labor,  which  should  in  no  event  be  neglected,  revision  of 
our  tax  laws,  contemplated  by  the  Democratic  party,  should  promote 
the  advantage  of  such  labor  by  cheapening  the  cost  of  necessaries 
of  life  in  the  home  of  every  workingman,  and  at  the  same  time  secur- 
ing to  him  steady  and  remunerative  employment. 

Upon  this  question  of  tariff  reform,  so  closely  concerning  every 
phase  of  our  national  life,  and  upon  every  question  involved  in  the 
problem  of  good  government,  the  Democratic  party  submits  its  prin- 
ciples and  professions  to  the  intelligent  suffrages  of  the  American 
people. 


THE  PERIOD  OF  DISCONTENT. 
I. 

PRESIDENT  HARRISON'S  ADMINISTRATION. 

The  Fifty-first  Congress— Thomas  B.  Reed— Coinage  Act  of  1890— 
Bland  Silver  Coinage  Act  of  1878— The  Purchase  of  Silver— Mc- 
Kinley  Tariff  Act  of  1890— William  McKinley— Features  of  the 
McKinley  Tariff — Reciprocity — International  Conference  of  1889 
—Reaction — The  Fifty-second  Congress — Bland  Free  Coinage 
Bill — A  Do-nothing  Congress. 


ITH  the  election  of  President  Harrison  a  Republican  Con- 
gress was  chosen  that  gave  the  new  administration  the 
support  that  is  necessary  to  a  successful  policy.  In  the 
Senate  upon  the  organization  of  the  51st  Congress 
there  were  39  Republicans  to  37  Democrats,  but  this  meager  majority 
was  afterward  increased  by  the  admission  of  the  new  States  of 
Montana,  North  and  South  Dakota,  and  Washington.  Montana  was 
not  represented  in  the  Senate  in  the  51st  Congress.  The  first 
Senators  from  the  new  States  wrere  Gilbert  A.  Pierce  and  Lyman  R. 
Case}',  of  North  Dakota;  Gideon  C.  Moody  and  Richard  F.  Pettigrew, 
of  South  Dakota,  and  Watson  C.  Squire  and  John  B.  Allen,  of  Wash- 
ington, all  Republicans.  The  Republicans  who  entered  the  Senate 
for  the  first  time  were  Edward  O.  Wolcott,  of  Colorado;  Anthony  Hig- 
gins,  of  Delaware;  and  William  D.  Washburn,  of  Minnesota.  John 
W.  Daniel  and  John  S.  Barbour,  of  Virginia,  Democrats,  succeeded 
William  Mahone  and  H.  H.  Riddleberger.  The  new  Republican  mem- 
bers of  the  House  were:  John  J.  De  Haven  and  William  Vandever,  of 
California;  Hosea  Townsend,  of  Colorado;  William  E.  Symonds, 
Charles  A.  Russell,  and  Frederick  Miles,  of  Connecticut;  Abner  Taylor, 
Wrilliam  E.  Mason,  Charles  A.  Hill,  P.  S.  Post,  William  H.  Gest,  and 
George  W.  Smith,  of  Illinois;  Joseph  B.  Cheadle,  of  Indiana;  John  H. 
Gear,  J.  H.  Sweeney,  Daniel  Kerr,  John  F.  Lacey,  and  James  P.  Dolliv- 
er,  of  Iowa;  E.  J.  Turner,  of  Kansas;  J.  H.  Wilson  and  H.  F.  Finley,  of 
Kentucky;  H.  D.  Coleman,  of  Louisiana;  H.  Stockbridge,  Jr.,  of  Mary- 
land; Charles  S.  Randall,  Elijah  F.  Morse,  Henry  C.  Lodge,  William 
Cogswell,  Francis  T.  Greenhalge,  John  W.  Candler,  J.  H.  Walker,  and 
Rodney  Wallace,  of  Massachusetts;  Edward  P.  Allen,  C.  E.  Belknap, 
Mark  S.  Brewer,  T.  D.  Bliss,  F.  W.  Wheeler,  and  S.  M.  Stephenson,  of 
Michigan;  M.  H.  Dunnell,  John  Lind,  Darwin  S.  Hall,  S.  P.  Snyder, 


488  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

and  Solomon  G.  Comstock,  of  Minnesota;  F.  G.  Neidringhaus,  Nathan 
Frank,  and  William  M.  Kinsey,  of  Missouri;  Thomas  H.  Carter,  of 
Montana;  W.  J.  Cornell  and  Gilbert  F.  Laws,  of  Nebraska;  H.  F.  Bar- 
tine,  of  Nevada;  Alonzo  Nute  and  Orren  C.  Moore,  of  New  Hamp- 
shire; Chris  A.  Bergen,  of  New  Jersey;  William  C.  Wallace,  M.  D.  Sti- 
vers,CharlesJ.  Knapp,  J.  A.Quackeubush,  John  Sanford,  John  H.  Mof- 
fitt,  Frederick  Lansing,  James  S.  Sherman,  David  Wilber,  James  J. 
Belden,  Milton  Delano,  Thomas  S.  Flood,  John  Raines,  and  William 
G.  Laidlaw,  of  New  York;  H.  P.  Cheatham,  and  H.  G.  Ewart,  of  North 
Carolina;  H.  C.  Hansbrough,  of  North  Dakota;  J.  A.  Caldwell,  E.  S. 
Williams,  M.M.Boothman,  Henry  L.  Morey,  Robert  P.  Kennedy,  Jacob 
J.  Pugsley,  C.  P.  Wickham,  Joseph  D.  Taylor,  Martin  L.  Smyser,  and 
Thomas  E.  Burton,  of  Ohio;  Smedley  Darlington,  R.  A.  Yardley,  Mar- 
riott Brosius,  J.  W.  Rife,  M.  B.  Wright, 
Henry  C.  McCormick,  Edward  Scull,  Samuel 
A.  Craig,  John  Dalzell,  J.  Warren  Ray,  C.  C. 
Townsend,  W.  C.  Culberson,  and  Lewis  F. 
Watson,  of  Pennsylvania;  Warren  O.  Arnold, 
of  Rhode  Island;  Oscar  F.  Gifford  and  John 

A.  Pickler,  of  South  Dakota;  Alfred  A.  Tay- 
lor and  Henry  C.  Evans,  of  Tennessee;  T.  H. 

B.  Browne  and  George  E.  Bowden,  of  Vir- 
ginia; John  L.  Wilson,  of  Washington;  and 
Charles  B.  Clark,  Nils  P.  Haugen,  and  Myron 
H.  McCord,  of  Wisconsin.       The  venerable 

THOMAS  B.  REED.  General  N.  P.  Banks  was  once  more  a  mem- 

ber   of    the     House     from     Massachusetts. 

Among  the  Democrats,  who  were  or  became  prominent,  were  William 
McAdoo,  of  New  Jersey;  Amos  J.  Cummings  and  Roswell  P.  Flower, 
of  New  York;  William  Mutchler  and  James  Kerr,  of  Pennsylvania, 
and  W.  H.  F.  Lee,  of  Virginia. 

Thomas  B.  Reed,  of  Maine,  was  chosen  Speaker  of  the  House,  a 
post  he  has  since  held,  except  in  the  52d  and  53d  Congresses, 
wrhen  the  Democrats  were  in  a  majority.  Mr.  Reed  had  proved 
himself  the  strongest  member  of  one  of  the  strongest  delegations  in 
Congress.  WTell-informed,  able,  brilliant,  eloquent,  witty,  with  a  vein 
of  sardonic  aggressiveness  in  his  wit  that  was  always  sarcastic,  and 
sometimes  bitter,  Speaker  Reed  brought  to  the  chair  qualities  that 
made  him  a  fit  successor  of  Banks,  of  Grow,  of  Colfax,  and  of  Blaiue. 
But  he  had  other  qualities  that  wTere  especially  needed  in  the  emer- 
gency in  which  he  was  called  to  the  Speakership.  Among  these  his 
quickness  of  perception,  his  readiness  of  resource,  and  his  indomit- 
able courage  are  the  most  conspicuous.  In  the  51st  Congress 


PRESIDENT   HARRISON'S   ADMINISTRATION.  489 

they  were  especially  necessary.  The  Republican  majority  in  the 
House  was  only  eight — 169  Republicans  to  161  Democrats.  To  hold 
such  a  slender  majority  in  hand,  and  with  it  to  achieve  practical  re- 
sults in  legislation  required  great  ability  and  skill,  as  well  as  the  un- 
bending will  of  a  master  of  men.  But  more  difficult  of  management 
than  the  slender  majority  was  the  powerful  minority.  Unable  to  con- 
trol legislation  the  Democrats  determined  to  prevent  it.  Their  plan 
was  to  break  the  quorum  by  refusing  to  vote.  This  device  was  met 
by  another  as  effective  as  it  was  simple.  Instead  of  acknowledging 
the  recalcitrant  Democrats  as  absentees  the  Speaker  counted  them 
as  present,  and  thus  enabled  the  House  to  pass  the  party  measures 
which,  under  a  less  resolute  presiding  officer,  would  have  been  beaten. 
This  was  called  "  counting  a  quorum."  It  was  a  plan  that  gave  great 
offense  to  the  Democrats,  who  denounced  it  with  extraordinary  bit- 
terness, and  nicknamed  the  Speaker  "  Czar  "  Reed. 

The  principal  legislation  of  the  51st  Congress  was  the  Coin- 
age Act  of  1890  and  the  so-called  McKinley  Tariff.  The  free  coinage 
of  silver  had  been  forcing  itself  upon  the  attention  of  Congress  with 
more  or  less  aggressiveness  ever  since  1877.  Previous  to  1873  it  had 
existed  legally,  although  in  practical  operation  the  coinage  of  the  sil- 
ver dollar  was  almost  nominal.  From  the  establishment  of  the  mint 
in  1792  to  1806  the  aggregate  number  of  silver  dollars  coined  was 
1,439,417,  and  from  1806  to  1835  there  was  no  coinage  whatever  of 
this  piece.  In  1836  the  number  of  dollar  pieces  coined  was  only  1,000. 
The  two  years  following  coinage  of  dollars  was  suspended,  but  was  re- 
sumed in  1839,  when  300  were  issued,  and  the  coinage  was  continued 
until  1873,  when  the  standard  silver  dollar  was  supplanted  by  the 
trade  dollar.  The  largest, annual  coinage  of  standard  silver  dollars 
was  made  in  the  years  1871  and  1872,  when  it  was  1,117,136  and  1,- 
118,600  respectively,  which  is  equal  to  nearly  two-fifths  of  the  aggre- 
gate of  standard  silver  dollars  coined  from  1792  to  1873,  which  aggre- 
gate was  7,830,538.  The  number  coined  in  January  and  February, 
1873,  was  296,000,  which  are  included  in  the  above  aggregate.  The 
"  Demonetization  Act "  was  passed  February  12,  1873.  At  this  time 
and  for  twelve  years  before  and  six  years  afterward,  no  gold  or  silver 
coins  were  in  actual  circulation  in  the  United  States.  At  first  no  at- 
tention was  paid  to  the  demonetization  of  the  silver  dollar,  but  after 
the  passage  of  the  Resumption  Act  in  1875,  an  agitation  for  its  res- 
toration to  the  coinage  began,  which  had  a  partial  success  in  the 
Coinage  Act  of  1878. 

In  1877  what  was  known  as  the  "  Bland  bill  "  passed  the  House  of 
Representatives.  It  was  prepared  and  championed  by  Mr.  Bland,  of 
Missouri.  This  bill  provided  for  the  coinage  of  "  silver  dollars  of  the 


490  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

weight  of  412!  grains  Troy,  of  standard  silver,  as  provided  in  the  Act 
of  January  18,  1873.  .  .  .  Which  coins,  together  with  all  silver 
dollars  heretofore  coined  by  the  United  States  of  equal  weight  and 
fineness,  shall  be  a  legal  tender,  at  their  nominal  value,  for  all  debts 
and  dues,  public  and  private,  except  where  otherwise  provided  by 
contract.  And,  any  owner  of  silver  bullion  may  deposit  the  same  at 
any  United  States  coinage  mint  or  assay  office,  to  be  coined  into  such 
dollars  for  his  benefit,  upon  the  same  terms  and  conditions  as  gold  bul- 
lion is  deposited  for  coinage  under  existing  laws."  It  gave  free  coin- 
age (that  is,  the  same  coinage  as  was  given  to  gold)  to  any  owner  of 
silver  bullion  who  presented  it  at  the  mint — unlimited  coinage  of  silver 
dollars  for  all  silver  bullion  presented  to  be  coined.  It  made  coinage 
compulsory,  at  the  ratio  existing  between  silver  and  gold.  It  was 
practical  monometallism,  with  silver  as  the  standard,  and  gold  at  a 
premium,  for  the  cheaper  metal,  when  coined,  invariably  takes  the 
volume  of  circulation  and  expels  the  dearer.  The  entire  character  of 
this  bill  was  changed  in  the  Senate,  and  as  finally  passed  by  both 
Houses  became  known  as  the  Bland-Allison  Act.  As  passed,  it  in- 
volved the  principle  of  bimetallism,  for  it  limited  the  coinage  of  the 
cheaper  metal,  silver,  and  undertook  to  maintain  it  at  par  with  gold 
by  providing  for  its  redemption. 

The  Act  of  February  28, 1878,  restored  the  silver  dollar  of  412i  grains 
to  the  coinage  with  full  legal  tender  power,  but  did  not  restore  silver 
bullion  to  the  minting  privilege  which  attached  to  it  prior  to  1873, 
and  which  was  in  every  respect  equal  to  that  bestowed  upon  gold.  This 
Act  re-established  the  "  dollar  of  the  fathers,"  made  it  legal  tender 
for  all  debts,  "  except  when  otherwise  expressly  stipulated  in  the  con- 
tract," and  directed  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  purchase  silver 
bullion  monthly  "  at  the  market  price  thereof,  not  less  than  two  mill- 
ion dollars'  worth  per  month,  nor  more  than  four  million  dollars' 
worth  per  month,  and  cause  the  same  to  be  coined  monthly,  as  fast  as 
so  purchased,  into  such  dollars."  The  third  section  provided  that 
holders  of  silver  dollars  "  may  deposit  the  same  with  the  Treasurer  or 
any  Assistant  Treasurer  of  the  United  States,  in  sums  not  less  than 
ten  dollars,  and  receive  therefor  certificates  of  not  less  than  ten  dol- 
lars each."  It  also  provided  "  that  immediately  after  the  passage  of 
this  Act  the  President  shall  invite  the  governments  of  the  countries 
composing  the  Latin  Union,  so  called,  and  of  such  other  European 
nations  as  he  may  deem  advisable,  to  join  the  United  States  in  a 
conference  to  adopt  a  common  ratio  between  gold  and  silver,  for  the 
purpose  of  establishing  internationally  the  use  of  bimetallic  money 
and  securing  fixity  of  relative  value  between  those  metals." 

This  bill  represented  the  thought  that  pervaded  the  silver  agitation 


PRESIDENT   HARRISON'S   ADMINISTRATION.  491 

of  later  years.  Those  who  favored  the  "  Greenback  "  inflation  scheme 
were  its  ardent  supporters.  Kepresentatives  from  the  silver-produc- 
ing States  were  strongly  in  its  favor,  in  the  belief  that  it  would  en- 
hance the  value  of  their  product.  While  it  made  the  coinage  of  silver 
dollars  compulsory  to  the  extent  of  $2,000,000  a  month,  it  placed  a 
limit  at  $4,000,000.  It  was  thought  that  this  much  circulation  in 
silver  dollars  could  be  kept  at  par  with  gold,  but  it  was  soon  found 
that  the  silver  dollars  would  not  circulate.  Out  of  the  12,136  tons 
of  silver  purchased  by  the  Government  at  a  cost  of  1308,199,262,  and 
out  of  the  378,166,793  silver  dollars  coined  therefrom  under  the  Act,  at 
an  expense  of  $5,000,000,  not  more  than  one  out  of  every  eight  found 
its  way  into  circulation.  The  Government  might  as  well  have  saved 
itself  the  $5,000,000  expense  of  coinage,  and  bought  and  stored  the 
silver  in  bullion  shape.  The  bullion  was  always  wrorth  more  than 
the  coined  dollars,  and  could  have  been  more  safely  and  cheaply 
cared  for  in  the  Treasury  vaults  than  its  equivalent  in  coins.  There 
was  no  increase  in  the  price  of  silver  bullion,  for  it  declined  from 
$1.12  an  ounce  in  1879,  to  93^  cents  an  ounce  in  1889,  or,  in  other 
words,  it  declined  to  a  point  where  it  stood  to  gold  as  22  to  1  per  ounce 
value,  and  the  value  of  the  silver  in  a  silver  dollar  was  only  72  cents. 
The  silver  certificate  feature  of  the  Act  proved  of  little  practical 
value,  and  in  the  main  the  Act  negatived  its  own  provisions,  and  bred 
causes  for  its  repeal,  which  led  to  the  passage  of  the  Coinage  Act  of 
July  14, 1890. 

The  bill  which  became  the  basis  of  this  Act  was  prepared  on  a 
plan  that  embraced  the  views  of  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  Windom. 
It  was  submitted  to  the  House  and  passed.  Its  provisions  were  that 
any  owner  of  silver  bullion,  not  foreign,  could  bring  it  to  any  mint  and 
obtain  for  it  legal  tender  treasury  notes  equal  in  value  to  the  then 
market  value  of  the  silver,  which  notes  were  redeemable  either  in 
gold  or  silver  bullion,  at  its  then  market  value,  at  the  option  of  the 
Government,  or  in  silver  dollars  at  the  holder's  option.  This  bill 
was  amended  in  the  Senate  by  inserting  a  clause  providing  for  free 
and  unlimited  coinage.  It  then  went  to  a  conference  committee, 
where  it  took  the  form  in  which  it  was  passed  finally  and  became  a 
law.  As  passed  it  directed  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  pur- 
chase 4,500,000  ounces  of  silver  bullion  each  month  at  the  market  price 
thereof,  not  exceeding  $1  for  every  371^  grains  of  pure  silver,  and  to 
issue  in  payment  for  such  purchase  Treasury  Notes  of  the  United 
States.  These  Treasury  Notes  were  made  redeemable  in  coin,  gold, 
or  silver,  at  the  discretion  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and  had 
full  legal  tender  value.  Following  this  clause  was  one  which  read: 
"  It  being  the  established  policy  of  the  United  States  to  maintain  the 


492  HISTORY   OF  THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

two  metals  on  a  parity  with  each  other  upon  the  present  legal  ratio, 
or  such  ratio  as  may  be  provided  by  law."  The  Act  also  provided 
for  the  actual  coinage  of  12,000,000  silver  dollars  a  month  up  until 
July  1,  1891.  After  that  date  no  silver  dollars  were  coined,  but  the 
bullion  purchased  was  held  in  the  form  of  tine  silver  bars.  Under  the 
Act  $28,298,455  was  coined,  and  up  to  April  1,  1891,  $89,602,198  in 
Treasury  Notes,  to  pay  for  bullion  deposited,  had  been  issued,  $77,605,- 
000  of  which  were  in  circulation.  At  the  same  date  the  value  of 
silver  bars  held  by  the  Treasury  was  $65,720,000.  On  November  1, 
1891,  the  total  of  silver  dollars  coined  and  in  existence  in  the  United 
States,  under  all  the  Acts,  was  $409,475,368,  of  which  $347,339,907 
was  in  the  Treasury,  and  only  $62,135,461  outside  of  the  Treasury, 
or  in  circulation.  Against  this  $323,668,401  silver  certificates  had 
been  issued,  $321,142,642  of  which  were  outside  of  the  Treasury,  and 
$2,525,759  inside.  At  the  same  date  the  stock  of  silver  bullion  in  the 
Treasury  was  $33,094,234. 

The  54,000,000  ounces  of  silver  which  the  Government  was  required 
to  buy  yearly,  and  to  issue  Treasury  Notes  therefor,  was  the  exact 
output  of  the  silver  mines  in  the  United  States  in  1890.  A  prime  ob- 
ject of  the  law  was,  therefore,  to  furnish  a  sure  market  for  the  product 
of  our  mines,  at  the  prevailing  price  of  silver  bullion  when  presented 
at  the  Treasury.  The  Act  was  a  compromise  act,  and  both  mine 
owners  and  advocates  of  "  free  and  unlimited  coinage  "  accepted  the 
compromise,  as  the  best  that  could  be  done  to  secure  a  certain  home 
market  for  their  product,  and  at  the  same  time  increase  the  circulat- 
ing medium  of  the  country  by  just  the  number  of  Treasury  Notes  re- 
quired to  purchase  54,000,000  ounces  of  silver.  It  was  a  general  be- 
lief, at  the  time  of  the  passage  of  the  Act,  that  its  effect  wrould  be  to 
increase  the  market  price  of  silver.  Indeed  this  was  confidently 
prophesied  by  mine  owrners  and  free  silver  coinage  advocates.  In  an- 
ticipation of  such  rise,  silver  speculators  entered  the  market  and 
drove  silver  bullion  up  to  $1.05  an  ounce  in  April,  1890;  to  $1.08  in 
May;  to  $1.15  in  August,  and  to  $1.21  in  September.  But  now  the 
natural  law  of  supply  and  demand  began  to  operate  against  them. 
They  had  to  contend  with  the  world's  market,  and  the  world's  prices, 
and  no  longer  with  a  home  market  and  home  prices.  The  inevitable 
consequence  was  that  the  price  of  silver  broke.  The  country  that 
could  sustain  a  certain  amount  of  silver  coin,  as  a  circulating  medium, 
at  par  with  gold,  could  not  sustain  the  market  value  of  silver  bullion 
at  a  point  above  where  the  laws  of  supply  and  demand,  as  established 
by  the  world  at  large,  chose  to  fix  it.  In  October,  1890,  silver  fell  to 
$1.09  per  ounce,  and  in  December  to  $1.06.  The  decline  was  gradual 
for  a  long  time.  In  December,  1891,  silver  was  worth  94|  cents  an 


PRESIDENT   HARRISON'S   ADMINISTRATION.  493 

ounce,  and  the  fine  silver  in  a  dollar  was  worth  only  73  cents.  On 
May  23,  1892,  silver  sold  for  881  cents  per  ounce.  Therefore,  even 
with  so  excellent  a  customer  as  the  Government,  and  one  ready  to 
take  the  entire  output  of  the  silver  mines  of  this  country,  the  mar- 
ket price  of  the  product  declined. 

The  Tariff  bill  of  1890  was  a  measure  of  far  greater  importance  and 
fraught  with  more  far-reaching  consequences  than  the  Coinage  Act. 
It  was  framed  by  the  Committee  on  Ways  and  Means,  and  took  the 
name  of  the  McKinley  bill,  from  the  Chairman  of  the  committee, 
William  McKinley.  Mr.  McKinley  had  served  thirteen  years  on  the 
committee  before  he  attained  to  its  leadership.  What  may  be  called 
his  maiden  speech  on  the  doctrine  of  Protection  was  made  in  1878, 
when  the  Wood  bill  was  under  discussion.  This  speech  ranked  as  one 
of  the  ablest  delivered  at  the  time,  and  stamped  him  as  a  leader  in 
the  economic  thought  that  was  to  dominate  future  tariff  legislation. 
His  part  in  the  passage  of  the  Tariff  of  1883  was  so  conspicuous  that 
Judge  Kelley  said  of  him  that  he  had  "  distanced  all  of  his  colleagues 
in  mastering  the  details  of  the  tariff."  More  than  any  one  else  Mr. 
McKinley  at  this  time  made  the  protective  idea  a  paramount  doc- 
trine of  the  Republican  party,  carrying  it  into  the  workshops  and 
homes  of  American  workiugmen.  In  1888,  when  Mr.  Mills  sprung 
his  remarkable  attack  upon  American  industries  upon  the  House, 
without  consultation  with  the  minority  of  the  Committee  on  Ways 
and  Means,  Mr.  McKinley  took  the  lead  in  resenting  the  insult,  and 
in  making  a  report  remarkable  for  its  exhaustive  presentation  of 
facts,  minuteness  of  detail,  and  invincibility  of  argument.  The  re- 
port was  followed  by  a  speech  that  showed  that  he  was  without  an 
equal  in  the  House  in  fearless,  logical,  and  convincing  championship 
of  a  Tariff  for  Protection.  The  election  of  President  Harrison  and  a 
Republican  House  of  Representatives  gave  him  the  first  claim  to  the 
Chairmanship  of  Ways  and  Means  in  the  51st  Congress,  where, 
by  virtue  of  his  position,  it  became  his  duty  to  incorporate  the  policy 
of  the  party  into  the  form  of  a  statute.  He  entered  upon  the  work 
fully  equipped  by  experience,  and  with  all  the  enthusiasm  of  his 
ardent  nature.  Determined  to  avoid  the  errors  into  which  the  Demo- 
crats had  previously  fallen,  he  invited  all  the  interests  concerned  in 
tariff  revision  to  a  hearing,  and  a  bill  was  framed  which  was  to  con- 
stitute the  Tariff  Act  of  1890,  and  be  popularly  known  as  the  "  Mc- 
Kinley bill."  The  effort  was  to  embody  in  the  bill  the  experience  of 
all  former  tariff  legislation  and  what  wras  best  of  all  former  acts;  to 
impose  rates  of  a  distinctively  protective  character,  and  in  the  inter- 
ests of  American  labor,  on  manufactures  wrhich  could  exist  here. 
but  whose  existence  was  threatened  by  foreign  competition;  to  im- 


494  HISTORY   OF  THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

pose  similar  rates  on  goods,  such  as  tin  plates,  which  we  do  not  but 
could  manufacture  and  ought  to;  largely  to  reduce  the  duty  on  neces- 
saries, or  exempt  them  altogether,  as  by  making  sugar  free;  to  in- 
crease the  free  list  by  placing  all  raw  materials  on  it  whose  importa- 
tion did  not  compete  with  the  home  growth  of  the  same;  to  introduce 
the  policy  of  reciprocity,  by  which  we  could  gain  something  by  en- 
larged trade  in  return  for  the  loss  of  duties  on  sugars  and  such  ar- 
ticles. 

A  great  deal  of  thought  was  given  to  the  bill,  and  it  was  fully 
debated  in  Congress.  Perhaps  no  Tariff  Act  was  ever  passed  in 
wThose  preparation  so  many  interests  had  been  so  fully  consulted,  and 
with  whose  provisions  the  varied  interests  were  so  fully  satisfied. 
Certainly  none  ever  passed  that  had  to  undergo  more  minute  criti- 
cism, whose  merits  were  more  elaborately  discussed,  and  respecting 
which  so  many  prophecies,  good  and  bad,  were  indulged.  Its  passage 
occupied  the  entire  time  of  the  first  session  of  the  51st  Congress, 
and  it  was  not  until  October  1,  1890,  that  it  became  a  law.  The 
McKinley  Act  increased  duties  on  about  115  articles,  embracing  farm 
products,  manufactures  not  sufficiently  protected,  manufactures  to  be 
established,  and  luxuries,  such  as  wines.  It  decreased  duties  on 
about  190  articles,  embracing  manufactures  to  be  established,  or 
which  could  not  suffer  from  foreign  competition.  It  left  the  duties 
unchanged  on  249  articles.  It  enlarged  the  free  list  till  it  embraced 
55.75  per  cent,  of  all  imports,  or  22.48  more  than  previous  tariffs. 
The  placing  of  sugar  on  the  free  list  was  a  loss  of  revenue  equal  to 
154,000,000  a  year.  Yet  in  its  practical  workings  the  act  never  failed 
to  raise  the  revenue  expected  of  it,  which  was  ample  for  all  the  needs 
of  the  Government,  with  a  fair  margin  to  spare. 

With  the  McKinley  Act  were  incorporated  reciprocity  features 
that  had  never  before  been  made  a  part  of  an  American  tariff.  While 
the  United  States  were  going  through  their  early  experiments  with 
Free  Trade  and  Protection  there  was  scarcely  a  thought  of  reciproc- 
ity or  reciprocal  trade,  as  we  have  come  to  understand  it.  It  was  not 
until  1824  that  its  advantages  began  to  be  discussed.  President 
Adams  desired  that  our  government  should  be  represented  in  the 
"  General  Assembly  of  American  Republics,"  called  to  meet  at  Pan- 
ama, June  22,  1826,  and  appointed  two  commissioners  subject  to  the 
"  advice  and  consent  of  the  Senate."  In  the  Senate  the  Committee 
on  Foreign  Relations  reported  against  the  proposed  mission,  and  an 
acrimonious  debate  ensued,  the  Slave  Power  being  hostile  to  the  en- 
couragement of  commercial  intercourse  with  the  South  American 
Republics,  whose  example  wras  regarded  as  "  scarcely  less  fatal  than 
the  independence  of  Hayti  to  the  repose  of  the  slave  States  of  the 


PRESIDENT   HARRISON'S   ADMINISTRATION.  495 

Union."  Finally  the  Senate  grudgingly  approved  the  President's 
selections,  and  the  House,  after  a  long  delay,  voted  the  necessary 
funds;  but  the  delay  was  fatal,  as  it  was  intended  to  be,  and  the 
congress  had  adjourned  before  the  commissioners  could  reach  Pan- 
ama. 

After  President  Adams's  futile  attempt  to  promote  reciprocal  trade 
the  idea  of  reciprocity  lay  dormant  until  it  was  revived  by  President 
Garfield.  The  Garfield  scheme  was  generally  attributed  to  the  fer- 
tile brain  of  Secretary  Elaine.  Invitations  were  issued  for  a  Peace 
Congress  of  the  independent  governments  of  the  two  Americas,  but 
they  were  withdrawn  by  President  Arthur  to  give  Congress  an  op- 
portunity to  act.  A  number  of  bills  was  introduced  into  the  two 
Houses,  but  beyond  the  appointment  of  a  commission  to  visit  the  Cen- 
tral and  South  American  Republics  nothing  was  done.  In  1886  Mr. 
McCreary,  of  Kentucky,  introduced  a  bill  into  the  House  providing  for 
an  international  conference  at  Washington,  and  for  "  considering 
questions  relating  to  the  improvement  of  business  intercourse  be- 
tween said  countries,  and  to  encourage  such  reciprocal  commercial 
relations  as  will  be  beneficial  to  all  and  secure  more  extensive  mar- 
kets for  the  products  of  each  of  said  countries."  In  opposition  to  the 
views  of  the  House  Committee  on  Foreign  Affairs,  Mr.  Belmont,  of 
New  York,  made  a  minority  report  that  contained  at  least  one  preg- 
nant suggestion.  "Nothing  is  now  so  desirable  for  our  own  people," 
he  said,  "  as  a  free  and  reciprocal  interchange  of  products  between 
ourselves  and  the  people  of  other  nations  on  this  continent.  But 
what  now  hinders  such  free  interchange  so  much  as  our  tariff  laws? 
If  this  Government  shall  invite  Brazil,  Mexico,  and  the  Republics  of 
Central  America  and  South  America  to  join  us  in  a  conference  to  pro- 
mote such  free  and  reciprocal  interchange  of  products,  what  conces- 
sions in  our  tariff  schedules  is  the  President  to  be  authorized  to  in- 
struct our  commissioners  to  propose  on  our  part?  The  question  of 
our  own  tariff  will  naturally  and  immediately  come  up  for  discussion 
and  consideration.  Shall,  for  example,  our  commissioners  be  author- 
ized to  offer  to  the  Argentine  Republic  to  admit  its  wool  into  our 
ports  free  of  duty?  No  one  can  be  more  sensible  than  I  am  of  the 
great  advantages  which  in  our  country  flow  from  the  free  commercial 
intercourse  unvexed  by  tariffs  or  custom  houses,  which  the  Federal 
Constitution  secures.  I  wish  by  some  possible  and  wise  contrivance 
those  advantages  now  enjoyed  by  and  between  Maine  and  California, 
Florida  and  Alaska,  could  be  realized  by  and  between  every  nation 
and  every  producer  on  this  hemisphere  from  Baffin's  Bay  to  Cape 
Horn." 

A  bill,  almost  identical  with  the  McCreary  bill,  had  been  intro- 


496  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

duced  into  the  Senate  by  Mr.  Frye,  of  Maine.  Jt  passed  the  Senate 
June  IT,  188G,  but  did  not  become  a  law  until  May  24,  1888.  Under 
it  an  International  American  Conference  was  called  to  meet  in  Wash- 
ington, October  2,  1889.  James  G.  Elaine  was  President  of  the  Con- 

o 

ference.  It  remained  in  session  until  April,  1890.  The  Conference 
adopted  a  report  which  recognized  the  policy  of  reciprocit}',  and  the 
"  need  of  closer  and  more  reciprocal  commercial  relations  among 
American  States."  Secretary  Blaine  submitted  this  report  to  the 
President,  June  19,  1890,  with  an  exhaustive  review  of  its  contents. 
Its  gist  was  that  out  of  a  total  of  $233,000,000  imports  furnished  to 
Chile  and  Argentine  alone  in  1888,  England  contributed  $90,000,000, 
Germany  $43,000,000,  France  $34,000,000,  and  the  United  States  only 
$13,000,000,  and  this  notwithstanding  the  facts  that  our  ports  were 
nearest,  and  the  bulk  of  those  imports  were  of  articles  we  were  ac- 
tually manufacturing  better  than  and  as  cheaply  as  foreign  nations; 
that  in  1868  our  total  exports  were  $375,737,000,  of  which  $53,197.000, 
or  14  per  cent.,  went  to  Spanish  America,  while  in  1888  our  total  ex- 
ports were  $742,3(18,000,  of  which  $09,273,000,  or  only  9  per  cent.,  went 
to  Spanish  America,  and  that  it  was  the  unanimous  judgment  of  the 
delegates  that  our  exports  to  these  countries  and  the  other  Republics 
could  be  increased  to  a  great  extent  by  the  negotiation  of  proper 
reciprocity  treaties. 

These  views  obtained  recognition  in  the  Tariff  Act  of  1890,  which 
provided  that  "  on  and  after  the  first  day  of  January,  1892,  whenever 
and  so  often  as  the  President  shall  be  satisfied  that  the  government  of 
any  country  producing  and  exporting  sugars,  molasses,  coffee,  tea, 
and  hides,  raw  and  uncured,  or  any  of  such  articles,  imposes  duties 
or  other  exactions  upon  the  agricultural  or  other  products  of  the 
United  States,  which,  in  view  of  the  free  introduction  of  such  sugar, 
molasses,  coffee,  tea,  and  hides  into  the  United  States,  he  deem  to 
be  reciprocally  unequal  and  unreasonable,  he  shall  have  the  power, 
and  it  shall  be  his  duty  to  suspend,  by  proclamation  to  that  effect,  the 
provisions  of  this  Act  relating  to  the  free  introduction  of  such  sugar, 
molasses,  coffee,  tea,  and  hides,  the  production  of  such  country,  for 
such  time  as  he  shall  deem  just,  and  in  such  case  and  during  such 
suspension  duties  shall  be  levied,  collected,  and  paid  upon  sugar,  mo- 
lasses, coffee,  tea,  and  hides,  the  product  of  or  exported  from  such 
designated  country,  as  follows."  Here  follow  the  rates  in  detail,  the 
rate  on  sugar  being  from  7-10th  of  a  cent  per  pound  to  2  cents  per 
pound,  according  to  test;  on  molasses  4  cents  a  gallon;  on  coffee  3 
cents  per  pound;  on  tea,  10  cents  per  pound,  and  on  hides  1^  cents 
per  pound. 

With    such    comprehensive    legislation — a    silver  purchasing  and 


PRESIDENT   HARRISON'S   ADMINISTRATION.  497 

i 

coinage  act,  and  a  radical  Protective  Tariff,  with  still  more  radical 
Reciprocity  features-  it  is  scarcely  surprising  that  the  country,  in 
the  height  of  a  Period  of  Discontent,  was  aghast  at  the  work  of  the 
bold  spirits  in  Congress  responsible  for  these  measures.  Keaction 
was  to  be  expected,  but  in  the  election  for  members  of  Congress  in 
1890  it  was  greater  than  even  the  most  sanguine  Democrat  could  have 
expected.  In  as  many  as  seventeen  States  not  a  single  Republican 
Representative  was  elected:  Alabama,  Arkansas,  Delaware,  Florida, 
Georgia,  Louisiana,  Maryland,  Mississippi,  Missouri,  Montana,  Ne- 
braska, New  Hampshire,  Rhode  Island,  South  Carolina,  Texas,  Vir- 
ginia, and  West  Virginia.  Five  States  chose  only  one  Republican: 
Connecticut,  Kentucky,  Minnesota,  North  Carolina,  and  Wisconsin; 
and  four  States  sent  only  two  Republicans:  Indiana,  Kansas,  New  Jer- 
sey, and  Tennessee.  The  Republican  strength  in  the  Republican 
States  was:  For  California  and  Michigan,  4  each;  Iowa  and  Massa- 
chusetts, 5  each;  Illinois,  0;  Ohio,  7;  New  York,  12;  and  Pennsylvania, 
IT.  Seven  States  with  only  one  Representative  sent  Republicans: 
Colorado,  Idaho,  Nevada,  North  Dakota,  Oregon,  Washington,  and 
Wyoming.  The  other  States  that  had  full  Republican  delegations 
were:  South  Dakota  and  Vermont,  2  each,  and  Maine,  4.  In  the 
52d  Congress  the  House  of  Representatives  contained  only  88 
Republicans  to  235  Democrats,  and  8  Farmers'  Alliance  Democrats. 
The  revolution  was  so  sweeping  that  the  Republicans  had  scarcely  a 
sufficient  number  of  members  to  represent  the  minority  on  the  com- 
mittees. 

The  52d  Congress,  although  there  was  an  overwhelming- 
Democratic  majority  in  the  House,  was  not,  like  its  predecessor,  a 
business  Congress,  and  it  developed  no  broad  statesmanship  or  cour- 
ageous attempts  at  legislation.  There  was  no  attempt  at  the  repeal 
or  a  general  revision  of  the  McKinley  Act.  Instead,  a  series  of 
bills  was  introduced  relating  to  special  articles,  such  as  the  IOWT- 
ering  of  duties  on  the  manufacture  of  wool  and  on  tin  plates,  and 
the  placing  of  wool,  binding  twine,  etc.,  on  the  free  list.  These  make- 
shifts were  the  occasion  of  animated  discussion,  and  most  of  them 
passed  the  House.  The  whole  purpose  of  the  Democratic  leaders  was 
to  shape  the  issues  based  on  the  legislation  of  the  51st  Congress 
for  the  Presidential  campaign  of  1892,  and  to  stimulate  the  discontent 
of  the  people,  so  as  to  bring  the  Democrats  back  to  power  in  both 
the  executive  and  legislative  branches  of  the  Government.  As  a  par- 
tisan policy  this  proved  successful,  but  only  to  result  in  another  re- 
action more  complete  and  permanent  than  that  of  1890-92. 

On  one  question  the  52d  Congress  showed  a  disposition  to 
take  distinct  grounds  in  opposition  to  the  theories  previously  held  by 


498  HISTORY   OF  THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

both  parties — on  the  free  coinage  of  silver.  The  Act  of  1890  had  failed 
to  realize  the  expectations  of  the  silver  producers.  The  Democrats 
of  the  South  and  West  began  to  regard  the  "  free  and  unlimited  coin- 
age of  silver  "  as  their  only  panacea  for  depressed  industrial  and 
trade  conditions.  To  meet  their  views  Mr.  Bland  introduced  into  the 
House  the  measure  known  as  the  Bland  Free  Silver  Coinage  bill.  He 
pressed  it  with  his  customary  vigor,  and  was  hopeful  of  its  success, 
but  when  he  demanded  the  previous  question  to  put  it  upon  its  pas- 
sage he  was  met  by  an  unexpected  vote  of  148  nays  and  148  ayes.  A 
sufficient  number  of  Eastern  Democrats  voted  with  the  Republicans 
to  defeat  it.  Charles  F.  Crisp,  of  Georgia,  had  been  chosen  Speaker 
in  opposition  to  William  M.  Springer,  of  Illinois,  because  of  the  sup- 
port of  the  Free  Silver  element  in  the  House,  and  he  served  the  men 
who  had  elected  him  by  breaking  the  tie  in  favor  of  the  bill,  but  it  was 
afterward  beaten  by  dilatory  motions. 

The  51st  Congress  was  popularly  known  as  the  "  Billion-Dol- 
lar Congress,"  because  of  the  enormous  proportions  of  the  appropria- 
tions voted  by  it.  Notwithstanding  its  successor  was  the  "  Do-Noth- 
ing Congress,"  the  appropriations  of  the  52d  Congress  ex- 
ceeded those  of  the  51st  by  $44,000,000.  One  cause  of  the  im- 
potence of  this  Congress — the  offspring  of  discontent  and  reaction — 
was  the  fact  that  the  majority  was  too  great;  it  was  unwieldy,  and  it 
proved  too  unsophisticated  and  awkward  for  dealing  with  serious 
questions.  But  the  "  popgun  "  method  of  treating  the  tariff  had  its 
advantages  on  the  eve  of  a  Presidential  campaign. 


II. 

THE    CAMPAIGN   OP    1892. 

Republican  National  Convention  at  Minneapolis — The  Candidates— 
Platform — Opposition  to  Harrison — Mr.  Blaine's  Candidature- 
Dramatic  Scenes  in  the  Convention — The  Ballot — Harrison  Nom- 
inated— Attempt  to  Stampede  the  Convention — McKinley— 
Whitelaw  Reid  Nominated  for  Vice-President — Democratic  Na- 
tional Convention — Grover  Cleveland  the  Favorite — A  Virulent 
and  Bitter  Platform — The  Presidential  Candidates — Cleveland 
Nominated — Adlai  E.  Stevenson  for  Vice-President — The  Peo- 
ple's or  Populist  Party — an  Aggressive  Campaign — Republican 
Measures  Assailed — Result  of  the  Elections — A  Democratic  Tri- 
umph. 

RESIDENT  HARRISON'S  Administration  was  not  suf- 
ficiently partisan  to  arouse  the  enthusiasm  of  the  party, 
but  no  distinct  purpose  to  resist  the  President's  renomina- 
tion  was  evinced  until  within  a  few  days  of  the  Republi- 
can National  Convention,  which  was  called  to  meet  at  Minneapolis, 
June  7,  1892.  It  was  not  known  that  the  opponents  of  the  President 
would  present  the  name  of  William  McKinley  to  the  Convention,  and 
Mr.  Blaine  was  not  supposed  to  be  a  candidate.  As  Secretary  of 
State  he  had  exerted  a  powerful,  if  not  controlling  influence,  over  the 
policy  of  the  Administration,  and  he  seemed  content  with  his  com- 
manding position.  But  suddenly,  only  four  days  before  the  meeting 
of  the  Minneapolis  Convention,  he  resigned  from  the  Cabinet  to  be- 
come a  candidate  for  the  Presidency.  It  was  then  too  late,  as  the 
result  afterward  showed,  but  his  erratic  action  was  not  out  of  keep- 
ing with  the  previous  history  of  his  distinguished  career. 

The  Minneapolis  Convention  was  the  first  departure  from  the  recog- 
nized Convention  cities  since  the  organization  of  the  Republican 
party — Philadelphia,  Baltimore,  Cincinnati,  and  Chicago.  Fremont 
and  Grant  for  his  second  term  were  nominated  in  Philadelphia,  Lin- 
coln was  nominated  the  second  time  at  Baltimore,  and  Hayes  was 
nominated  at  Cincinnati.  The  Chicago  nominations  were:  Lincoln  in 
I860,  Grant  in  18(>8,  Garfield  in  1880,  Blaine  in  1884,  and  Harrison  in 
1888.  Why  Minneapolis  was  chosen  in  1892  it  would  be  difficult  to 
say,  unless  its  purpose  was  to  gratify  the  Northwest.  The  majority 
of  the  delegations  were  compelled  to  pass  through  Chicago  on  their 


500  HISTORY   OF   THE   REPUBLICAN    PARTY. 

way  to  the  Convention,  and  for  the  others  Chicago  was  as  easy  of 
access  as  Minneapolis.  As  a  departure  the  experiment  did  not  prove 
satisfactory. 

Three  days  were  spent  by  the  Convention  before  the  presentation 
of  the  names  of  candidates  for  President  of  the  United  States  was 
reached.  William  McKiuley  was  made  President  of  the  Convention, 
and  a  Platform  was  adopted  favoring  Protection  for  American  indus- 
tries, bimetallism  with  legislative  restriction,  a  free  ballot  and  an 
honest  count,  extension  of  foreign  commerce,  the  enforcement  of  the 
Monroe  Doctrine,  separation  of  church  and  state,  efficient  protection 
to  railroad  employees,  reduced  postage  and  extension  of  free  mail  de- 
liven',  civil-service,  the  Nicaragua  canal,  admissions  of  Territories 
as  States,  the  World's  Fair,  and  pensions;  and  opposing  Southern 
outrages,  pauper  immigration,  trusts,  and  intemperance. 

The  leaders  of  the  Elaine  forces  were  Senator  Quay,  of  Pennsyl- 
vania; Thomas  C.  Platt,  of  New  York;  Joseph  II.  Mauley,  of  Maine, 
and  J.  S.  Clarkson,  of  Iowa.  They  were  determined  and  aggressive 
lighters,  and  did  not  give  up  the  hope  of  beating  Harrison  until  they 
were  themselves  beaten.  "  When  they  went  into  the  Convention  at 
last  night's  session,"  wrote  a  well-informed  correspondent  on  the 
fourth  day,  "  they  were  reduced  to  the  necessity  of  making  a  demon- 
stration. They  had  been  thrown  into  a  panic,  which  they  could  not 
disguise,  by  the  bold  expedient  of  the  Harrison  managers  in  calling 
their  delegates  to  make  a  display  of  their  strength  at  midday.  The 
caucus  proved,  as  it  was  intended  to  do,  the  determination  of  the 
issue,  and  when  the  4(53  men  got  together,  Harrison's  nomination  was 
practically  assured.  It  did  not  suit  the  purposes  of  the  opposition  to 
recognize  this.  They  had  gone  so  far  that  a  cold  plunge  could  hardly 
make  them  any  worse  off.  They  undertook  to  recover  some  of  their 
lost  prestige  by  forcing  an  issue  on  the  report  of  the  Committee  on 
Credentials,  and  fought  desperately  from  8  o'clock  until  nearly  1.30  this 
morning  to  get  something  out  of  it.  It  was  an  issue  on  which  it  was 
perfectly  well  understood  that  the  Harrison  people  were  forty  to  fifty 
votes  weaker  than  on  the  main  question.  On  this  account  the  Op- 
position expected  to  win.  When  the  first  test  was  won  by  the  Harri- 
son men  by  463  votes,  exactly  the  number  that  had  been  counted  at 
the  Market  Hall  meeting,  it  was  noticed  that  a  majority  of  the  Con- 
vention was  elbow  to  elbow  under  the  leadership  of  Depewr  on  the 
floor.  Exact  figures  had  a  striking  and  impressive  effect  in  show- 
ing that  the  organization  of  the  Harrison  forces  was  altogether  com- 
plete, and  could  not  be  broken  even  on  a  side  issue.  The  next  ballot, 
taken  on  the  majority  report  of  the  Credentials  Committee,  gave  the 
Harrison  people  thirteen  additional  votes.  It  left  the  opposition  in  a 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1892.  501 

state  of  depression,  and  was  the  event  which  absolutely  determined 
the  hopelessness  of  the  Elaine  cause." 

Finally,  when  the  presentation  of  the  names  of  candidates  was 
reached,  and  the  call  of  the  States  was  ordered,  Senator  Wolcott,  of 
Colorado,  was  the  first  to  answer.  He  was  one  of  President  Harri- 
son's bitterest  opponents  in  the  Convention,  and  the  audience  settled 
down  in  full  confidence  of  hearing  something  worth  hearing.  He 
made  no  efforts  for  theatrical  effect,  but  plunged  into  the  middle  of 
his  speech,  saying  that  one  man  was  needed  to  carry  the  country 
above  all  others,  and  he  named  him — "  James  G.  Elaine."  At  the 
mention  of  the  name  flags  \vere  whisked  out  of  pockets,  fans  were 
waved  in  air,  delegates  and  spectators  rose  to  their  feet,  and  for  two 
minutes  Senator  Wolcott  calmly  surveyed  a  howling,  whistling  mob 
below  and  above.  The  cheers  would  die  down  until  the  howling  mob 
could  catch  its  breath,  then  the  war  cry  would  be  taken  up  again, 
but  finally  delegates  and  spectators  resumed  their  seats.  Then  Wol- 
cott went  on  in  a  clear,  ringing  voice  with  his  eulogy.  Some  of  his 
words  and  sentences  that  called  out  the  most  applause  were  these: 
"  Reciprocity;"  "  Our  candidate  has  never  been  President  of  the 
United  States,  but  he  will  be;  "  "  There  is  a  mistaken  notion  that  pub- 
lic office  is  a  personal  gift;  "  "  I  rejoice  that  the  opportunity  is  given 
me  to  cast  my  vote  for  a  man  who  seeks  everything  for  his  country 
and  nothing  for  himself;  "  "  He  stands  for  all  that  is  brightest  and 
best  in  American  statesmanship;  "  "  There  is  no  true  Republican  who 
will  not  follow  where  he  leads;  "  "  We  pledge  our  unfaltering  and 
loyal  support  to  James  G.  Elaine."  More  cheers  were  evoked  as  he 
closed,  but  it  was  not  like  the  old  Elaine  days. 

When  Indiana  was  called  the  venerable  ex-Secretary  of  the  Navy, 
Richard  W.  Thompson — "  Uncle  Dick  "  —rose  in  his  place  and  stood 
for  a  moment  as  if  in  doubt.  Then,  as  cries  of  "  Platform!  platform!" 
came  from  all  parts  of  the  hall,  he  walked  straight  and  steadily  up  the 
aisle  and  ascended  the  speaker'  s  tribune.  There  was  something 
in  his  plucky  manner  and  sturdy  bearing,  despite  his  83  years,  and  his 
white  hair  and  wrrinkled  visage,  that  awakened  the  admiration  of  the 
whole  multitude,  and  as  he  placed  General  Harrison  in  nomination 
as  the  "  Warrior  Statesman,"  the  Harrison  forces  went  wild  in  their 
demonstrations. 

After  Harrison  was  named  the  call  of  the  States  was  continued. 
When  Minnesota  was  called  W.  H.  Eustis,  a  millionaire  Minneapolis 
lawyer,  made  a  speech  seconding  the  nomination  of  Elaine,  which 
however,  provoked  only  perfunctory  applause.  At  this  point  oc- 
curred one  of  the  dramatic  episodes  of  the  Convention.  While  the 
cheers  were  rapidly  dying  out  a  pretty  woman,  with  a  sweet,  girlish 


502  HISTORY   OF  THE   REPUBLICAN    PARTY. 

face  and  blue,  sparkling  eyes,  rose  suddenly  among  the  mass  of  men 
and  women  behind  the  chairman's  desk.  She  was  Mrs.  Carson  Lake, 
of  Washington.  In  full  view  of  the  vast  multitude  she  waved  a  silken 
umbrella  round  her  shapely  head  and  cried:  "  Elaine!  Elaine!  James 
G.  Elaine!  "  Then  she  grasped  her  sun  umbrella,  pure  white,  with  a 
white  silk  cord  and  tassel,  opened  it,  and  swung  it  round  her  head 
and  danced  it  up  and  down,  sometimes  grasping  it  with  one  hand  and 
sometimes  with  both.  "  Elaine!  Elaine! "  she  cried  again,  and 
thousands  of  people  in  the  galleries,  and  the  Elaine  people  among  the 
delegates  rose  in  a  mass  and  shouted.  Mrs.  J.  S.  Clarkson,  who  sat 
beside  her,  caught  the  enthusiasm,  too,  and  springing  to  her  feet, 
waved  a  silken  flag,  and  even  Mrs.  Kerens,  whose  husband  was  a 
stanch  Harrison  man,  added  her  mite  to  the  tribute  to  Elaine.  It  ran 
wildly,  outburst  after  outburst.  Big  "  Tom  "  Reed,  who  sat  just  in 
front  of  Mrs.  Kerens,  took  up  the  movement.  His  face  melted  into  a 
broad  grin,  and  he  stood  and  shouted  in  honor  of  his  old-time  enemy. 
All  over  the  hall  the  delegates  were  crying  "  Elaine!  Elaine!  James  G. 
Elaine!"  Delegates  opened  their  umbrellas  and  waved  them  aloft. 
Judge  Thurston,  of  Nebraska,  waved  a  big  white  umbrella  with 
Elaine's  name  in  big  black  letters.  An  Illinois  delegate,  standing 
on  his  chair,  fan  in  hand,  led  the  cheers  of  "  Elaine!  Elaine!  "  on  the 
floor  like  the  leader  of  a  chorus  in  a  comic  opera.  Then  the  band 
brought  up  the  rear  of  the  procession  with  a  melody,  and  just  as  the 
crowd  in  the  galleries  and  on  the  floor  started  the  stamping  again, 
Chairman  McKinley  began  to  pound  the  table  with  his  gavel.  His 
call  brought  most  of  the  delegates  to  order  for  a  minute,  but  the 
confusion  in  the  galleries  continued.  Again  the  chairman  pounded 
the  table,  and  again  his  signal  mingled  with  the  echoes.  After 
thirty-one  minutes  of  pandemonium.  Governor  McKinley's  voice  was 
at  last  heard,  requesting  that  as  a  matter  of  safety,  suggested  by  those 
having  a  knowledge  of  the  building,  the  stamping  of  feet  be  discon- 
tinued. 

There  was  another  outburst  of  applause  when  New  York  was 
reached.  This  time  it  was  a  Harrison  demonstration.  To  Chauncey 
M.  Depew  was  committed  the  task  of  seconding  Harrison's  nomina- 
tion. His  speech  was  one  of  the  best  to  which  the  Convention 
listened,  and  it  was  finished  to  the  cheering  and  shouting  of  the  mul- 
titude and  the  waving  of  flags  and  banners.  Harrison  also  had  his 
fair  champions,  and  they  started  in  to  outdo  the  Elaine  episode. 
Three  or  four  ladies,  with  Mrs.  Depew  as  a  leader,  stood  on  the  high 
platform,  waving  handkerchiefs,  fans  and  flags,  and  calling  out  to 
the  thousands  to  shout  "  louder,  louder,  louder."  The  frenzied  crowd 
obeyed  their  call.  High  it  arose;  then  dying  away,  then  bursting 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1892.  503 

out  afresh.  "Harrison!  Harrison!"  they  cried.  "Glory,  glory  halle- 
lujah." Some  one  started  the  song,  and  sweeping  over  the  wild  furore 
of  cheers  came  the  well-known  strains.  It  was  superb.  While  the 
swelling  anthem  filled  the  building  a  group  of  men  appeared  with  an 
immense  portrait  of  the  President.  The  shouts  and  shrieks  were  re- 
newed. It  was  like  a  storm  with  screaming  winds  and  beating  sea 
accompaniment.  It  was  too  much  for  some  of  the  irritated  Elaine 
men,  and  presently  a  follower  of  the  Plumed  Knight  came  rushing 
down  the  broad  aisle  carrying  a  splendid  silken  banner  of  the  Chi- 
cago Elaine  Club,  having  on  its  front  the  features  of  the  man  from 
Maine.  The  hosts  of  Elaine  men  jumped  to  their  seats.  Their  Joan 
of  Arc  was  again  waving  her  white  sunshade.  It  was  now  a  contest  of 
voice  against  voice,  cheer  against  cheer,  of  portrait  against  portrait. 
The  banner  of  Elaine  was  planted  defiantly  in  front  of  the  portrait  of 
Harrison.  The  Harrison  bearers  pushed  their  \vay  beyond  the  in- 
truder and  carried  their  burden  back  and  forth  in  the  aisles,  while 
the  band  high  up  near  the  roof  struck  up  the  "  Star  Spangled  Ban- 
ner." 

Warner  Miller,  of  New  York,  gave  the  Elaine  men  another  chance 
to  prove  their  lung  power  by  following  Depew  with  a  speech  for  the 
Maine  candidate.  The  speechmaking  only  closed  when  Wisconsin 
was  called,  Senator  Spooner  speaking  for  Harrison.  WThen  the  roll 
was  finished  only  two  names  were  before  the  Convention,  Harrison 
and  Elaine;  but  a  sign  of  the  attempted  stampede  that  was  to  be 
made  later  was  shown  in  the  midst  of  a  Elaine  outburst,  when  an  al- 
leged Elaine  delegate  appeared  with  a  picture  of  McKinley  mounted 
on  a  pole,  and  paraded  with  it  up  and  down  the  aisles,  to  the  delight 
of  a  large  part  of  the  supposed  Elaine  delegates. 

The  scenes  attending  the  balloting  were  among  the  most  exciting 
ever  witnessed  in  a  National  Convention.  It  was  a  hand-to-hand 
encounter  between  the  Harrison  column  and  the  politicians  whose 
hearts  were  set  upon  the  defeat  of  the  President.  There  was  only  one 
ballot,  but  even  in  tabular  form  it  showed  the  inherent  interest  of  a 
struggle  extending  over  two  hours.  The  vote  was:  Harrison,  535^; 
Elaine,  182£;  McKinley,  182;  Thomas  B.  Reed,  4,  and  Robert  T.  Lin- 
coln, 1. 

From  the  time  of  the  previous  adjournment  at  two  o'clock  in  the 
morning  until  the  balloting  began  there  was  no  cessation  in  the  work 
of  President  Harrison's  opponents.  The  effect  was  to  convince  the 
Ohio  delegation  that  McKinley  could  be  nominated  if  Ohio  would 
unite  upon  him.  This  meant  a  direct  loss  of  at  least  twenty  votes  for 
Harrison  from  Ohio,  and,  perhaps,  defections  all  along  the  line.  But 
Ohio  yielded  to  the  temptation  reluctantly,  and  in  the  end  only  be- 


504  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

cause  the  voting  showed  a  spontaneous  movement  for  McKinley  that 
seemed  irresistible  if  McKinley's  State  gave  the  signal  for  a  stampede. 
The  plan  was  to  throw  as  much  of  Elaine's  strength  as  possible  for 
McKinley  before  Ohio  was  reached.  Beginning  with  Alabama's 
seven  votes  the  scheme  gave  promise  of  success,  Connecticut,  Massa- 
chusetts, Michigan,  and  New  York  all  developing  unexpected  Mc- 
Kinley strength,  partly  at  Harrison's  expense,  but  mostly  at  the  ex- 
pense of  Blaine.  When  Ohio  was  reached  more  time  was  asked,  but 
Chairman  McKinley  directed  the  roll  to  be  called.  Then  Mr.  For- 
aker, rising,  said,  "  I  announce  that  Ohio  casts  two  votes  for  Harri- 
son and  forty-four  for  William  McKinley,  Jr."  There  was  a  wild, 
deafening  shout,  but  Mr.  McKinley,  as  the  noise  subsided,  was  heard 
addressing  the  Ohio  delegation.  "  I  challenge  the  vote  of  Ohio,"  he 
said.  "  You  can  not,"  responded  Foraker,  with  a  good-natured  "  you- 
are-in-it-uow  "  wave  of  his  hand.  "  You  can  not."  "  I  am  a  member  of 
the  Ohio  delegation,"  Governor  McKinley  replied.  "  You  have  left 
the  delegation  and  your  alternate  is  serving.  We  do  not  own  you," 
responded  Foraker,  crisply.  McKinley  persisted,  and  the  delegation 
was  polled.  When  the  result  was  announced  it  was  found  that  one  of 
the  two  Harrison  delegates  had  receded,  and  only  McKinley's  alter- 
nate voted  for  the  President.  Oregon  followed  for  McKinley,  and 
then  Pennsylvania,  throwing  off  the  Blaine  mask,  gave  him  42  votes 
to  only  3  for  Blaine.  But  the  nineteen  Pennsylvania  delegates  who 
remained  true  to  Harrison  stopped  the  tide,  and  prevented  a  stam- 
pede. The  nomination  of  Harrison  was  made  when  the  vote  of  Texas 
was  cast.  The  whole  number  of  votes  in  the  Convention  was  906,  the 
number  cast,  904  1-3;  necessary  to  a  choice,  453. 

There  was  scarcely  any  talk  of  a  candidate  for  Yice-President 
until  the  nomination  for  President  was  made.  After  that  result 
the  Convention  took  a  recess  until  evening.  By  tacit  consent  the 
naming  of  the  candidate  was  left  to  the  New  York  delegation,  which 
agreed  upon  Whitelaw  Reid,  the  editor  of  the  Tribune.  The  name  of 
Thomas  B.  Reed  was  also  presented,  but  it  was  withdrawn  at  the  re- 
quest of  the  Maine  delegation,  and  Mr.  Reid  was  nominated  by  unani- 
mous vote. 

When  the  Democratic  National  Convention  met  at  Chicago  on 
June  21,  the  nomination  of  Grover  Cleveland  was  a  foregone  conclu- 
sion. There  was  a  number  of  other  candidates.  David  Bennett  Hill, 
of  New  York;  Horace  Boies,  of  Iowa;  Arthur  P.  Gorman,  of  Mary- 
land, and  John  G.  Carlisle,  of  Kentucky,  all  had  their  followers.  Tam- 
many Hall  was  again  opposed  to  Cleveland,  and  it  was  certain  that 
the  vote  of  New  York  would  be  given  to  Hill.  Outside  of  New  York 
he  had  little  strength.  Iowa  was  for  Boies,  and  he  had  advocates  in 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1892.  505 

the  Ohio  and  other  delegations.  Neither  Gorman  nor  Carlisle  had 
anything  more  than  a  nominal  support,  even  from  their  own  States. 
It  was  a  Cleveland  Convention,  and  while  the  Tammany  contingent 
continued  the  cry  until  the  last, 

"  Hill,  Hill,  give  us  Hill," 

the  Pennsylvanians  were  nearer  the  sentiment  that  swayed  the  ma- 
jority of  the  delegates  when  they  sang, 

"  Grover,  Grover,  four  years  more  of  Grover; 
Out  they  go. 
In  wre  go, 
And  then  we'll  be  l  in  clover.'  " 

William  C.  Owens,  of  Kentucky,  was  made  temporary,  and  William 
L.  Wilson,  of  West  Virginia,  permanent  President  of  the  Convention. 
u  The  distinguished  leader  who  presided  over  the  Republican  Con- 
vention," Mr.  Wilson  said,  u  boasted  that  he  does  not  know  what  tariff 
reform  is.  Whoever  said  that  he  did?  Let  us  hope,  with  that 
charity  that  eudureth  all  things  and  believeth  all  things,  that  he  is 
fully  as  ignorant  as  he  vaunts  himself  to  be.  Unfortunately,  the  peo- 
ple are  not  so  ignorant  of  the  meaning  of  protection  which  is  doled 
out  to  them  in  the  bill  that  bears  his  name.  They  see  that  meaning- 
written  large  to-day  in  a  prostrated  agriculture,  in  a  shackled  com- 
merce, in  stricken  industries,  in  the  compulsory  idleness  of  labor, 
in  law  made  wealth,  in  the  discontent  of  the  workingmen,  and  the 
despair  of  the  farmer."  These  words  were  the  keynote  to  the  action 
of  the  Convention,  to  the  Platform,  and  to  the  campaign.  The  Plat- 
form was  unusually  bitter  in  denunciation  of  the  Republicans  and  Re- 
publican measures.  It  virulently  denounced  protection  as  a  fraud 
and  unconstitutional,  the  McKinley  act  as  the  "  culminating  atrocity 
of  class  legislation,"  and  reciprocity  as  a  fraud;  declared  opposition 
to  trusts,  to  the  giving  away  of  public  lands  to  railroads,  to  the  Coin- 
age Act  of  1890,  to  State  banks,  to  Republican  foreign  policy,  to 
pauper  immigration,  and  to  Harrison's  administration;  and  in  favor 
of  Mississippi  improvements,  the  Nicaragua  canal,  popular  education, 
the  admission  of  new  States,  the  protection  of  railway  employees,  and 
the  abolition  of  the  "  sweating  system." 

Mr.  Cleveland  was  put  in  nomination  by  Governor  Leon  Abbett,  of 
New  Jersey.  His  speech  vaunted  the  achievements  of  the  party  as 
the  result  of  the  Cleveland  policy.  "  In  every  State  in  this  Union," 
he  said,  "  that  policy  has  been  placed  in  Democratic  platforms,  and 
our  battles  have  been  fought  upon  it,  and  this  great  body  of  represen- 


506  HISTORY   OF  THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

tative  Democrats  has  seen  its  good  results.  Every  man  in  this  Con- 
vention recognizes  the  policy  of  the  party.  In  Massachusetts,  it  gave 
us  a  Russell;  in  Iowa,  it  gave  us  a  Boies;  in  Wisconsin,  it  gave  us  a 
Beck  for  Governor,  and  a  Yilas  for  Senator;  in  Michigan,  it  gave  us 
Winans  for  Governor.,  and  gave  us  a  Democratic  Legislature,  and 
will  give  us  eight  electoral  votes  for  President.  In  1889,  in  Ohio, 
it  gave  us  James  E.  Campbell  for  Governor,  and  in  1891,  to  defeat 
him,  it  required  the  power,  the  wealth,  and  the  machinery'  of  the  en- 
tire Republican  party.  In  Pennsylvania,  it  gave  us  Kobert  E.  Patti- 
son;  in  Connecticut,  it  gave  us  a  Democratic  Governor,  who  was  kept 
out  of  office  by  the  infamous  conduct  of  the  Republican  party;  in  New 
Hampshire,  it  gave  us  a  Legislature,  of  which  we  were  defrauded;  in 
Illinois,  it  gave  us  Palmer  for  Senator,  and  in  Nebraska,  it  gave  us 
Boyd  for  Governor.  In  the  great  Southern  States,  it  has  continued  in 
power  Democratic  Governors  and  Democratic  Legislatures;  in  New 
Jersey,  the  power  of  the  Democracy  has  been  strengthened,  and  the 
Legislature  and  the  Executive  are  both  Democratic;  in  the  great 
State  of  New  York,  it  gave  us  Hill  for  Senator  and  Roswell  P.  Flowrer 
for  Governor.  With  all  these  glorious  achievements  it  is  the  wisest 
and  best  party  policy  to  nominate  again  the  man  whose  policy  made 
these  successes  possible.  The  people  believe  that  these  victories 
which  gave  us  a  Democratic  House  of  Representatives  in  1890,  and 
Democratic  Governors  and  Senators  in  Republican  and  doubtful 
States,  are  due  to  the  courage  and  wisdom  of  Grover  Cleveland.  And, 
so  believing,  they  recognize  him  as  their  great  leader." 

Only  two  other  candidates  were  formally  presented:  Mr.  Boies  by 
Mr.  Buncombe,  and  Mr.  Hill  by  William  C.  Dewitt,  of  Brooklyn.  It 
was  three  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  the  23d  when  the  balloting  began. 
Cleveland  was  nominated  on  the  first  ballot,  receiving  617  1-3  votes 
to  115  for  Hill,  103  for  Boies,  36£  for  Gorman,  16  2-3  for  Stevenson,  14 
for  Carlisle,  2  for  Morrison,  2  for  Campbell,  and  1  each  for  Pattison, 
Russell,  and  Whitney.  For  Vice-President  Adlai  E.  Stevenson,  of 
Illinois,  received  402  votes;  Isaac  P.  Gray,  of  Indiana,  343;  Allen  B. 
Morse,  of  Michigan,  86;  John  L.  Mitchell,  of  Wisconsin,  45;  Henry 
Watterson,  of  Kentucky,  26;  Burke  Cockran,  of  New  York,  5;  and 
Lambert  Tree  and  Horace  Boies,  one  each.  After  the  ballot  Mr. 
Stevenson  wras  nominated  by  acclamation. 

The  form  of  discontent  that  was  represented  by  the  "  Greenback- 
ers  "  in  1880  and  1884,  and  the  United  Labor  and  Union  Labor  parties 
in  1888,  now  became  known  as  the  Populist  party.  It  formulated  its 
doctrines  at  a  meeting  at  Ocala,  Fla.,  and  was  sufficiently  advanced  to 
take  its  place  in  the  campaign.  This  it  did  in  the  nomination  of  Gen- 
eral James  B.  Weaver,  of  Iowa,  for  President.  The  party  was  re- 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1892.  507 

fruited  from  both  the  leading  parties,  and  gave  as  reasons  for  its  ex- 
istence those  found  in  the  preamble  to  its  platform:  that  corruption 
dominates  the  ballot-box,  the  legislature,  the  Congress,  and  touches 
even  the  ermine  of  the  bench.  The  people  are  demoralized,  news- 
papers largely  subsidized  or  muzzled,  public  opinion  silenced,  business 
prostrated,  homes  mortgaged,  labor  impoverished,  lands  concentrated 
in  the  hands  of  capitalists,  workmen  denied  the  right  of  organization, 
imported  pauperized  labor  beating  down  wages,  the  fruits  of  toil 
stolen  to  build  up  colossal  fortunes,  the  national  power  to  create 
money  appropriated  to  enrich  bondholders,  a  vast  public  debt  funded 
into  gold-bearing  bonds,  silver  demonetized,  and  the  currency 
abridged  to  fatten  usurers,  bankrupt  enterprises,  and  enslave  in- 
dustry. 

The  campaign  turned  on  the  questions  that  were  given  prominence 
in  the  platforms:  the  untried  McKinley  Tariff,  the  new  policy  of 
Reciprocity,  still  a  theory  rather  than  a  condition,  the  need  of  a 
change.  Every  Republican  measure  was  assailed  with  unexampled 
bitterness.  Every  Republican  act  was  misrepresented.  It  wras  the 
passions,  not  the  judgment  of  the  people,  to  which  the  Democrats 
made  their  appeals.  u  The  mission  of  the  Democratic  party/'  said 
one  of  the  orators  at  Chicago,  "  is  to  fight  for  the  under  dog.  When 
that  party  is  out  of  power,  we  may  be  sure  there  is  an  under  dog  to 
light  for,  and  the  under  dog  is  the  American  people.  When  that 
party  is  out  of  power,  we  may  be  sure  that  some  party  is  in  control  of 
our  government  that  represents  a  section,  and  not  the  whole  country; 
that  stands  for  a  class,  and  not  the  whole  people.  Never  was  this 
truth  brought  home  to  us  more  defiantly  than  by  the  recent  conven- 
tion at  Minneapolis.  W7e  are  not  deceived  as  to  the  temper  of  the 
Republican  party.  We  are  not  in  doubt  as  to  its  purposes.  Having 
taxed  us  for  years  without  cause  or  mercy,  it  now  proposes  to  disarm 
us  of  all  power  of  resistance.  Republican  success  in  this  campaign, 
whether  we  look  to  the  party  platform,  the  candidates,  or  the  utter- 
ances of  the  party  leaders,  means  that  the  people  are  to  be  stripped 
of  their  franchise  through  force  bills,  in  order  that  they  may  be 
stripped  of  their  substance  through  tariff  bills.  .  .  .  When  you 
confer  upon  the  Government  the  power  of  dealing  out  wealth,  you  un- 
chain every  evil  that  can  prey  upon  and  eventually  destroy  free  in- 
stitutions, excessive  taxation,  class  taxation,  billion-dollar  Con- 
gresses, a  corrupt  civil-service,  a  debauched  ballot-box,  and  pur- 
chased elections.  In  every  campaign  the  privilege  of  taxing  the 
people  will  be  bartered  for  contributions  to  corrupt  them  at  the  polls. 
After  every  victory  a  new  McKinley  bill  to  repay  those  contributions 
with  usury,  out  of  taxes  taken  from  the  people."  A  special  appeal 


508  HISTORY   OF   THE   REPUBLICAN    PARTY. 

was  made  to  the  American  workingman.  Protection  was  denounced 
as  ua  fraud";  Reciprocity  was  "a  sham";  the  Sherman  Silver 
Act  was  "  a  cowardly  makeshift."  The  people  listened  to  the  claim 
and  yielded  to  it.  The  result  was  a  Democratic  victory  that  was  a 
surprise  to  both  parties — a  victory  that  was  a  disaster  from  the  mo- 
ment of  its  achievement. 

Cleveland  and  Stevenson  carried  the  full  Electoral  vote  of  twenty  - 
three  States,  counting  California,  one  vote  from  which  went  to  Har- 
rison. Harrison  and  Reid  carried  fifteen  States,  counting  Ohio,  one 
vote  from  which  went  to  Cleveland,  and  Oregon,  one  vote  from  which 
was  cast  for  Weaver,  the  Populist  candidate.  Weaver  carried  four 
States.  Michigan  gave  five  Electoral  votes  to  Cleveland  and  nine  to 
Harrison,  and  North  Dakota  one  each  to  Cleveland,  Harrison,  and 
Weaver.  Cleveland  had  the  Solid  South;  he  also  had  the  Republican 
States  of  California,  Illinois,  Indiana,  New  York,  and  Wisconsin. 
Weaver  had  Colorado,  Idaho,  Kansas,  and  Nevada.  In  the  States  of 
Colorado,  Idaho,  Kansas,  North  Dakota,  and  Wyoming  the  Democrats 
ran  no  Electoral  tickets,  but  voted  with  the  Populists  for  the  purpose 
of  taking  these  States  from  the  Republicans.  The  votes  in  the  di- 
vided States  were  due  to  these  causes;  in  California  and  Ohio,  be- 
cause the  vote  for  the  Cleveland  and  Harrison  electors  was  close;  in 
Michigan,  because  by  act  of  the  Legislature  each  Congress  district 
voted  separately  for  an  elector;  in  Oregon,  because  one  of  the  four 
candidates  for  electors  on  the  People's  party  ticket  was  also  on  the 
Democratic  ticket,  the  result  being  three  Republicans  and  one  Peo- 
ple's party  electors;  in  North  Dakota,  because  one  of  the  two  People's 
party  electors  who  were  elected  cast  his  vote  for  Cleveland,  thus  caus- 
ing the  Electoral  vote  of  the  State  to  be  equally  divided  between 
Cleveland,  Harrison,  and  Weaver. 

Cleveland  received  277  Electoral  votes  to  145  for  Harrison  and  22 
for  Weaver.  The  popular  vote  was  12,154,542,  of  which  Cleveland  re- 
ceived 5,550,533;  Harrison,  5,175,577;  Weaver,  1,122,045;  Bidwell, 
Prohibitionist,  279,191;  and  Wing,  Socialist  Labor,  21,191.  Cleve- 
land owed  his  pluralities  to  the  Populists  in  three  States — California, 
Indiana,  and  Wisconsin. 


III. 

PRESIDENT  CLEVELAND'S  SECOND  ADMINISTRATION. 

Effects  of  Mr.  Cleveland's  Election — The  Fifty-third  Congress — Presi- 
dent Cleveland  on  the  Financial  Disorders — Repeal  of  the  Silver 
Purchasing  Act — The  Opposition  to  Kepeal — A  Battle  for  Free 
Silver — Coinage  of  the  Seigniorage — Wilson  Tariff  Bill — Com- 
mittee on  Ways  and  Means — A  Disappointing  Measure — Income 
Tax  Feature — Change  in  the  Rules  of  the  House — The  Wilson 
Bill  in  the  Senate — Amendments — Arguments  against  the  In- 
come Tax — Sugar  Trust  Scandal — The  Tariff  Bill  in  Conference 
—President  Cleveland's  Remarkable  Letter — Indignant  Re- 
sponse of  Mr.  Gorman — The  Bill  as  Passed  a  Humiliating  Sur- 
render— The  President  Allows  it  to  Become  a  Law — Another 
Letter— Repeal  of  Reciprocity — Reaction — The  Fifty-fourth  Con- 
gress— Failure  of  the  New  Tariff — Condition  of  the  Treasury. 


O  Presidential  election  before  it  ever  resulted  in  a  reaction 
so  immediate  and  complete  as  that  which  attended  the  sec- 
ond election  of  Grover  Cleveland.  Political  victory  was 
followed  by  commercial  disaster.  Gold  went  abroad  with 
a  rapidity  never  before  experienced.  The  Treasury  reserve  became 
depleted.  Exports  fell  off.  Expenditures  exceeded  receipts.  The 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  intimated  the  probability  of  redeeming 
silver  certificates  in  silver.  Credits  shriveled,  banks  closed,  corpora- 
tions and  firms  went  to  the  wall,  business  demoralization  became 
well-nigh  universal,  mills  shut  down,  labor  went  idle.  The  period  was 
one  of  panic,  or  rather  a  suspension  of  faith  and  credit  that  is  usually 
worse  than  panic.  There  was  a  want  of  confidence  that  was  to  rest 
like  an  incubus  on  the  entire  second  administration  of  Mr.  Cleve- 
land. 

It  was  thought  that  the  Sherman  Silver  Purchasing  Act  Of  1890 
had  something  to  do  with  the  business  catastrophe  that  was  the  di- 
rect result  of  Mr.  Cleveland's  election.  To  repeal  this  measure  the 
53d  Congress  was  called  to  meet  in  special  session,  August  7, 
1893.  It  was  a  Democratic  Congress  in  both  Houses.  A  revolution 
had  been  wrought  in  the  Senate  by  the  Populist  States.  Nebraska, 
Nevada,  North  Dakota,  and  Wyoming  had  all  chosen  Populist  Sena- 
tors; Kansas  and  South  Dakota  were  already  represented  by  Popu- 


510  HISTORY   OF   THE   REPUBLICAN    PARTY. 

lists.  The  Republican  Senators  from  Colorado,  Idaho,  and  the  two 
Dakotas  were  Populists  in  fact  if  not  in  name.  California,  New 
York,  and  Wisconsin  sent  Democrats  to  replace  Republicans.  Only 
thirty-seven  Republicans  remained  in  a  chamber  that  two  years  be- 
fore had  forty-seven.  In  the  House  there  were  signs  of  Republican 
recovery,  125  Republicans  to  88  in  the  52d  Congress.  Thus 
the  Democratic  party  found  itself  in  possession  of  all  branches  of  the 
government  for  the  first  time  in  thirty-two  years.  It  could  apply  its 
principles  at  will,  but  though  a  triumphant,  it  was  not  to  prove  a 
happy  party.  After  all  its  boastings  in  the  previous  campaign,  it 
proved  unequal  to  the  work  before  it. 

"  Our  unfortunate  financial  plight,"  the  President  said  in  his  mes- 
sage to  the  new  Congress,  "  is  not  the  result  of  untoward  events,  nor 
of  conditions  related  to  our  natural  resources;  nor  is  it  traceable  to 
any  of  the  afflictions  which  frequently  check  national  growth  and 
prosperity.  With  plenteous  crops,  with  abundant  promise  of  re- 
munerative production  and  manufacture,  with  unusual  invitation  to 
safe  investment,  and  with  satisfactory  assurance  to  business  enter- 
prise, suddenly  financial  distrust  and  fear  have  sprung  up  on  every 
side.  Numerous  moneyed  institutions  have  suspended  because 
abundant  assets  were  not  immediately  available  to  meet  the  demands 
of  frightened  depositors.  Surviving  corporations  and  individuals  are 
content  to  keep  in  hand  the  money  they  are  usually  anxious  to  loan, 
and  those  engaged  in  legitimate  business  are  surprised  to  find  that 
the  securities  they  offer  for  loans,  though  heretofore  satisfactory,  are 
no  longer  accepted.  Values  supposed  to  be  fixed  are  fast  becoming 
conjectural,  and  loss  and  failure  have  invaded  every  branch  of  busi- 
ness. I  believe  these  things  are  principally  chargeable  to  Congres- 
sional legislation  touching  the  purchase  and  coinage  of  silver  by  the 
General  Government.  This  legislation  is  embodied  in  a  statute 
passed  on  July  14,  1890,  which  was  the  culmination  of  much  agita- 
tion on  the  subject  involved,  and  which  may  be  considered  a  truce, 
after  a  long  struggle,  between  the  advocates  of  free  silver  coinage  and 
those  intending  to  be  more  conservative.  Undoubtedly  the  monthly 
purchases  by  the  Government  of  four  million  and  five  hundred 
thousand  ounces  of  silver,  enforced  under  that  statute,  were  re- 
garded by  those  interested  in  silver  production  as  a  certain  guaranty 
for  its  increase  in  price.  The  result,  however,  has  been  entirely  dif- 
ferent, for  immediately  following  a  spasmodic  and  slight  rise,  the 
price  of  silver  began  to  fall  after  the  passage  of  the  act,  and  has  since 
reached  the  lowest  point  ever  known.  This  disappointing  result  has 
led  to  renewed  and  persistent  effort  in  the  direction  of  free  silver 
coinage.  ...  It  was  my  purpose  to  summon  Congress  in  special 


•  PRESIDENT  CLEVELAND'S  SECOND   ADMINISTRATION.          511 

session  early  in  the  coming  September  that  we  might  enter  promptly 
upon  the  work  of  tariff  reform,  which  the  true  interests  of  the  country 
clearly  demand.,  which  so  large  a  majority  of  the  people,  as  shown  by 
their  suffrage,  desire  and  expect,  and  to  the  accomplishment  of 
which  every  effort  of  the  present  Administration  is  pledged.  But 
while  tariff  reform  has  lost  nothing  of  its  immediate  and  paramount 
importance,  and  must  in  the  near  future  engage  the  attention  of  Con- 
gress, it  has  seemed  to  me  that  the  financial  condition  of  the  country 
should  at  once,  and  before  all  other  subjects,  be  considered  by  your 
honorable  body." 

A  bill  for  the  unconditional  repeal  of  the  silver  purchasing  clause 
of  the  Act  of  1890  was  offered  by  Mr.  Wilson,  of  West  Virginia,  on 
August  11,  but  it  was  met  immediately,  and  at  all  its  stages  by  amend- 
ments looking  to  free  coinage,  at  ratios  from  16  to  1  to  20  to  1.  A 
few  Western  Republicans  voted  for  all  these  propositions,  and  many 
Democrats  voted  against  them.  All  these  efforts  failing,  Mr.  Bland 
attempted  to  revive  the  Bland-Allison  Act  of  1878,  but  this  attempt 
failed  also.  The  debate  closed  on  August  28,  and  the  bill  providing 
for  unconditional  repeal  was  passed  by  the  House  by  239  yeas  to  109 
nays.  All  the  Republicans,  except  the  Silver  Republicans,  voted  for 
it.  The  Senate  passed  a  substitute  for  the  House  bill  which  contained 
a  declaration  in  favor  of  bimetallism  through  international  agree- 
ment. The  vote  was  43  yeas  to  32  nays.  The  majority  comprised 
23  Republicans  and  20  Democrats.  The  minority  consisted  of  19 
Democrats,  9  Silver  Republicans,  and  4  Populists.  The  Senate 
bill  was  passed  on  October  28,  and  the  House  concurred  on  November 
1  by  194  yeas  to  94  nays,  not  voting  66. 

Nearly  three  months  were  required  for  this  simple  act  of  perfunc- 
tory legislation — three  days,  or  three  weeks  at  most,  ought  to  have 
been  sufficient  for  its  accomplishment.  For  profound  intensity  of 
feeling  about  nothing,  for  embittered  silliness  in  all  its  stages,  it  was 
a  match  for  the  Secession  weeks  of  the  36th  Congress  and  the  weary 
and  virulent  years  of  Reconstruction.  The  silver  purchasing  clause 
of  the  Sherman  Act,  so-called,  was  indeed  a  miserable  makeshift.  To 
make  its  repeal,  or  the  occasion  of  its  repeal,  a  test  of  principle  or  even 
of  partisanship  was  a  folly  even  greater  than  that  of  its  passage.  A 
resolution  offered  by  Mr.  Bland  at  the  outset  and  ordered  by  the  House 
is  in  its  terms  a  serious  caricature  of  those  solemn  proceedings. 
Fourteen  days  were  allowed  for  the  debate.  "  Eleven  days  of  the  de- 
bate," the  resolution  said,  "  to  be  given  to  general  debate  under  the 
rules  of  the  last  House  regulating  general  debate,  the  time  to  be 
equally  divided  between  the  two  sides  as  the  Speaker  may  determine. 
The  last  three  days  of  debate  may  be  devoted  to  the  consideration  of 


512  HISTORY   OF   THE   REPUBLICAN    PARTY. 

the  bill  and  the  amendments  herein  provided  for,  under  the  usual 
five-minute  rule  of  the  House,  as  in  Committee  of  the  Whole  House. 
General  leave  to  print  is  hereby  granted.  Order  of  amendments: 
The  vote  shall  be  taken  first  on  an  amendment  providing  for  the  free 
coinage  of  silver  at  the  present  ratio.  If  that  fail,  then  a  separate 
vote  to  be  had  on  a  similar  amendment  proposing  a  ratio  of  IT  to  1; 
if  that  fails,  on  one  proposing  a  ratio  of  18  to  1;  if  that  fails,  on  one 
proposing  a  ratio  of  11)  to  1 ;  if  that  fails,  on  one  proposing  a  ratio  of  20 
to  1.  If  the  above  amendment  fails,  it  shall  be  in  order  to  offer  an 
amendment  reviving  the  Act  of  February  28,  1878,  restoring 
the  standard  silver  dollar,  commonly  known  as  the  Bland-Allison  Act; 
the  vote  then  to  be  taken  on  the  engrossment  and  third  reading  of  the 
bill  as  amended,  or  on  the  bill  itself  if  all  amendments  shall  have  been 
voted  down,  and  on  the  final  passage  of  the  bill  without  other  inter- 
vening motions." 

All  this  was  carried  out  with  a  fidelity  as  grave  as  it  was  gro- 
tesque. But  the  Senate  outdid  the  House  in  solemn  trifling.  Mr. 
Peffer,  of  Kansas;  Mr.  Perkins,  of  California;  Mr.  Berry,  of  Arkansas; 
Mr.  Allen,  of  Nebraska;  Mr.  Blackburn,  of  Kentucky;  Mr.  Stewart,  of 
Nevada,  and  Mr.  Squire,  of  Washington,  all  had  substitutes  for  the 
Finance  Committee's  substitutes,  and  substitutes  for  the  substitutes 
of  each  other.  These  substitutes,  like  the  amendments  offered  in  the 
House,  looked  to  the  free  coinage  of  silver;  but  some  of  them  had  a 
reminiscent  quality  that  the  House  amendments  lacked.  Mr.  Peffer 
wanted  to  go  back  to  the  silver  coinage  of  1834,  and  this  failing,  to 
the  Act  of  January  18,  1837.  Mr.  Berry  would  have  been  content  to 
revive  the  Act  of  1878.  Mr.  Pasco,  of  Florida,  wanted  a  commission  to 
ascertain  or  establish  a  ratio.  There  were  propositions  for  additional 
Treasury  notes,  for  silver  coinage  with  a  seigniorage  of  20  per  cent., 
and  the  coinage  of  the  seigniorage.  These  attempts  to  open  the 
mints  to  the  products  of  the  Silver  States  neutralized  the  effects  of 
repeal.  Simple  repeal  would  have  been  beneficial,  if  adopted  quickly 
and  unconditionally.  Menaced  by  the  Populistic  free  silver  theory 
of  a  powerful  minority  in  both  parties,  it  soon  became  manifest  that 
the  substantial  benefits  expected  from  repeal  were  not  to  be  realized; 
that  business  enterprise  must  remain  prostrate  while  the  impending 
tariff  legislation,  for  which  the  Administration  and  the  Congress 
had  received  a  "  mandate  "  from  the  people,  continued  as  the  main 
cause  of  the  widespread  depression  and  alarm. 

As  the  repeal  of  the  McKinley  Tariff  was  inevitable  in  a  Congress 
elected  to  repeal  it,  it  was  a  mistake  to  defer  its  consideration  from 
the  special  to  the  regular  session  of  the  53d  Congress,  with  the 
subsequent  delay  and  uncertainty  attending  the  passage  of  the  Tariff 


PRESIDENT  CLEVELAND'S  SECOND   ADMINISTRATION.  513 

of  1894.  In  the  meantime,  the  question  of  the  free  coinage  of  silver 
continued  to  obtrude  itself  upon  both  Houses,  while  the  condition 
of  the  Treasury  went  from  bad  to  worse.  When  the  53d  Con- 
gress met  in  regular  session,  December  4,  1893,  the  Treasury  reserve 
had  fallen  below  the  f  100,000,000  limit  deemed  safe  for  redemption 
purposes.  There  was  a  deficit  in  Treasury  receipts  of  about  $68,000,- 
000.  One  loan  of  $50,000,000  had  been  called  for,  and  others  were  ex- 
pected to  follow.  As  a  means  of  aiding  the  Treasury,  Mr.  Bland  in- 
troduced into  the  House  a  bill  providing  for  the  coinage  of  the  Treas- 
ury seigniorage.  It  was  championed  by  all  the  free  silver  coinage 
men,  who  sawr  in  it  an  opportunity  they  had  lost  during  the  extra 
session  of  the  Congress.  The  estimated  value  of  this  seigniorage  was 
$55,000,000,  which,  if  coined  into  silver  dollars,  would  be  so  much 
straight  gain  to  the  Treasury.  It  was  opposed  by  the  Republicans 
and  an  able  Democratic  contingent  as  sheer  inflation,  without  a 
particle  of  security  behind  it,  since  the  value  of  silver  bullion  in  the 
Treasury,  against  which  $153,000,000  of  silver  certificates  had  been 
issued,  had  fallen  from  $120,000,000  to  $97,000,000.  Adding  the  es- 
timated value  of  the  seigniorage  ($55,000,000)  to  this  $97,000,000,  the 
sums  would  still  be  short  of  the  $153,000,000  silver  certificates  which 
were  to  be  protected.  This  bill  did  not  pass,  but  it  served  to  show 
that  the  question  of  the  free  coinage  of  silver  was  a  rapidly  growing 
one,  and  that  the  day  might  not  be  distant  when  it  would  project 
itself  upon  the  country  in  a  form  independent  of  existing  political 
parties. 

Although  the  introduction  of  a  Tariff  bill  into  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives wras  long  delayed,  and  its  passage  still  longer,  its  prepara- 
tion began  with  the  re-election  of  Speaker  Crisp  and  the  appointment 
of  the  Committee  on  Ways  and  Means.  With  this  object  in  view 
this  important  committee  was  in  a  measure  reconstituted.  William 
L.  Wilson,  of  West  Virginia,  was  made  its  chairman  instead  of  Will- 
iam M.  Springer,  of  Illinois,  who  held  the  place  in  the  52d 
Congress.  The  appointment  of  Mr.  Wilson  was  congenial  to  the 
President,  and  it  was  even  said  it  was  made  at  his  instance.  Mr. 
Wilson  was  a  scholarly  man,  and  thoroughly  grounded  in  the  prin- 
ciples of  Free  Trade,  as  taught  by  the  political  economists.  In  the 
application  of  the  doctrines  taught  in  books  to  the  political  needs 
of  a  revenue-supported  government,  he  was  to  prove  himself  far  from 
equal  to  the  task  intrusted  to  him.  His  ideal  of  a  revenue  tariff 
was  the  Tariff  of  1846,  a  tariff  that  served  its  purpose  in  its  day,  but 
was  based  on  conditions  entirely  different  from  those  of  1894.  With 
Mr.  Wilson  on  the  Committee  were  not  fewer  than  five  Southern 
Representatives  imbued  with  economic  principles  akin  to  his  own: 


514  HISTORY   OF  THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

McMillin  of  Tennessee,  Turner  of  Georgia,  Montgomery  of  Ken- 
tucky, Breckinridge  of  Arkansas,  and  Tarsney  of  Missouri.  This  gave 
the  South  a  majority  of  the  Committee.  The  other  Democrats  were: 
Whiting  of  Michigan,  Cockran  of  New  York,  Stevens  of  Massachu- 
setts, Bryan  of  Nebraska,  and  Bynum  of  Indiana.  This  Democratic 
majority  at  once  went  to  work  upon  the  new  Tariff  bill,  its  prepara- 
tion extending  over  the  special  session  of  Congress  and  through  the 
vacation  period,  so  as  to  have  the  measure  ready  for  the  first  regular 
session  in  December. 

In  the  preparation  of  this  bill  the  Democratic  majority  of  the  Com- 
mittee permitted  no  interference  with  its  work.  Complaint  was 
made  that  the  business  interests  of  the  country  were  denied  a  hear- 
ing, such  as  had  been  accorded  when  the  McKinley  bill  of  1890  was 
in  preparation,  or,  if  granted  a  hearing,  that  their  facts  and  arguments 
were  ignored.  But  hearings  were  not  deemed  necessary,  as  the 
theory  of  the  bill  was  to  eliminate  the  protective  principle  as  far  as 
possible,  and  to  establish  a  system  of  purely  revenue  duties,  with  as 
near  an  approach  as  circumstances  would  admit  to  the  principles  of 
free  trade.  When  the  bill  was  reported  in  the  House  its  opponents 
quickly  pointed  out  incongruities  due  to  a  desire  to  placate  certain 
sections  and  favor  certain  industries.  In  this  respect  it  was  at  odds 
with  the  Platform  adopted  by  the  Democratic  National  Convention  of 
1892.  A  leading  feature  of  the  bill  was  the  almost  universal  de- 
parture from  the  principles  of  specific  duties,  and  the  adoption  of  ad 
valorem  rates.  In  this  respect  it  copied  the  old  Walker  Tariff  Act, 
which  went  out  of  existence  with  the  adoption  of  the  Morrill  Tariff  of 
1861.  In  general  terms  the  bill  made  sweeping  reductions  in  duties 
as  fixed  in  the  McKinley  Act,  turned  the  lumber  schedule  practically 
into  a  free  list,  placed  wool,  coal,  animals,  and  iron  ore  on  the  free  list, 
and  brought  all  manufactures  of  wool  below  the  protective  rate.  The 
further  enlargement  of  the  free  list  wras  effected  by  modifications  in 
all  the  schedules,  and  especially  in  those  which  embraced  products  of 
the  farm.  It  struck  a  direct  and  exterminating  blow  at  the  principle 
of  reciprocity,  which  had  been  incorporated  into  the  McKinley  Act, 
and  brought  about  the  speedy  abrogation  of  the  numerous  treaties 
which  had  been  negotiated  under  that  Act,  looking  to  an  enlarge- 
ment of  reciprocal  trade  relations  with  other  countries,  and  which 
had  already  brought  about  great  increase  in  commerce. 

The  most  conspicuous  and  at  the  same  time  the  most  unexpected 
feature  of  the  bill  was  a  tax  of  two  per  cent,  on  all  incomes  over 
14,000.  In  this  country  direct  taxes  had  always  been  so  unpopular 
as  to  be  considered  intolerable.  An  income  tax  had  never  been 
levied  before,  except  during  the  Civil  War,  when  the  vast  expendi- 


PRESIDENT  CLEVELAND'S  SECOND  ADMINISTRATION.          515 

tures  of  the  Government  rendered  it  necessary,  but  as  soon  as  pos- 
sible after  the  return  of  peace  it  was  repealed.  While  it  was  in  op- 
eration it  met  with  the  bitterest  hostility  from  the  Democrats.  Even 
its  necessity  as  a  war  measure  could  not  justify  it  in  Democratic  eyes. 
It  had  never  been  demanded  in  a  Democratic  platform,  and  a  proposi- 
tion to  include  it  in  the  declaration  of  the  Convention  that  nominated 
Cleveland  in  1892,  would  have  been  repudiated  as  peremptorily  as  by 
the  Convention  that  nominated  Buchanan  in  1856.  The  only  previ- 
ous demand  for  "  a  graduated  income  tax  "  was  in  the  Populist  Plat- 
form, adopted  at  Omaha  in  1892.  But  President  Cleveland  com- 
mended the  principle  in  his  annual  message  in  December,  1893,  even 
before  the  Committee  on  Ways  and  Means  had  offered  the  new  Tariff 
bill  to  the  House.  "  The  Committee,"  he  said,  "  after  full  considera- 
tion, and  to  provide  against  a  temporary  deficiency  which  may  exist 
before  the  business  of  the  country  adjusts  itself  to  the  new  tariff 
schedules,  have  wisely  embraced  in  their  plan  a  few  additional  in- 
ternal-revenue taxes,  including  a  small  tax  upon  incomes  derived 
from  certain  corporate  investments.  These  new  assessments  are  not 
only  absolutely  just  and  easily  borne,  but  they  have  the  further  merit 
of  being  such  as  can  be  remitted  without  unfavorable  business  dis- 
turbance whenever  the  necessity  of  their  imposition  no  longer  exists." 
In  the  subsequent  discussions  of  the  bill,  especially  in  the  Senate,  the 
Populists  boldly  assumed  the  paternity  of  this  income  tax  feature, 
and  their  claim  to  it  was  not  denied.  It  was  due  to  the  blending  of 
Populistic  and  Democratic  theories,  almost  universal  in  the  South, 
and  the  complaint  of  the  West  that  the  rich  were  not  bearing  their 
full  share  of  taxation.  When  Mr.  Wilson  brought  forward  the  bill  to 
which  his  name  was  given  he  sustained  it  in  a  vigorous  speech  that 
was  intended  to  sound  the  keynote  of  the  argument  in  its  behalf  and 
carry  it  forward  to  a  happy  and  a  speedy  passage.  But  it  soon  be- 
came apparent  that  the  measure  in  all  its  features  was  to  be  the  sub- 
ject of  a  prolonged  parliamentary  struggle.  It  pleased  nobody,  its 
halting  friends  scarcely  more  than  its  open  enemies.  It  was  not 
such  a  bill  as  the  out  and  out  free  traders  had  expected.  Conserva- 
tive Democrats  were  alarmed  because  it  threatened  their  home  in- 
terests and  industries.  The  Republicans  denounced  it  for  its  glaring 
inconsistencies  and  confessed  weaknesses.  The  income  tax  feature 
was  assailed  as  a  confession  in  advance  that  as  a  revenue  measure  the 
bill  would  fail  to  produce  the  necessary  revenue,  as  intended  to  give 
to  an  unequal  and  unproductive  revenue  scheme  a  sectional  and  re- 
vengeful direction,  and  as  at  odds  with  all  ideas  of  justice. 

But  Republican  opposition  from  the  very  outset  took  the  form  of 
resistance  in  acts  rather  than  in  words.     The  Democratic  trick  of  not 


516  HISTORY   OF  THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

voting  so  flagrantly  exhibited  in  the  51st  Congress  was  resorted 
to  so  persistently  and  continuously  that  headway  in  the  progress  of 
the  bill  became  slow  and  painful.  At  last,  as  the  only  way  out  of  the 
dilemma,  a  change  of  the  rules  was  made  to  allow  a  quorum  to  be 
counted — a  method  that  had  been  bitterly  denounced  wThen  it  was 
practiced  by  "  Czar  "  Reed.  With  a  majority  of  64  on  the  final  pas- 
sage of  the  bill,  the  measure  would  have  gone  by  default  at  any  of  its 
stages  if  many  of  those  who  voted  for  it  could  have  had  their  way.  The 
dominating  power  that  compelled  their  acquiescence  was  the  idea 
that  the  bill  was  a  party  necessity.  From  hour  to  hour  and  day  to 
day  and  week  to  week,  the  need  of  holding  the  party  together,  of 
keeping  a  quorum  for  votes  that  might  prove  fatal,  of  making  head- 
way in  the  face  of  an  interest  that  flagged  as  the  debate  progressed, 
and  as  amendment  was  piled  upon  amendment,  like  Pelion  upon 
Ossa,  was  the  dominant  force  of  the  struggle.  The  bill  came  from  the 
Committee  on  Ways  and  Means,  December  19,  1893;  it  passed  the 
House,  February  1,  1894.  The  vote  was  204  ayes  to  140  nays,  seven- 
teen of  the  negative  votes  being  cast  by  Democrats. 

In  the  Senate  the  bill  was  stripped  of  all  semblance  to  the  original 
before  it  was  finally  reported  from  the  Finance  Committee.  In  the 
Committee  it  was  referred  to  a  sub-committee  of  three  Senators  from 
contiguous  Southwestern  States  without  important  commercial  or  in- 
dustrial interests — Mills  of  Texas,  Vest  of  Missouri,  and  Jones  of 
Arkansas.  This  sub-committee  went  to  work  as  if  it  was  framing  a 

o 

Democratic  platform  for  the  South;  as  if  it  had  been  instructed  to 
report  a  tariff  bill  for  the  agricultural  States,  in  which  the  demands 
of  the  manufacturing  States  were  to  be  ignored.  It  refused  hearings 
to  interests  that  claimed  a  right  to  be  heard,  and  attempted  to  quiet 
the  clamor  of  which  this  course  was  the  occasion  by  sending  out 
circulars  inviting  opinions  as  to  the  effect  of  changes  in  tariff  rates. 
It  was  claimed  that  hearings  would  result  in  waste  of  time  and  cause 
indefinite  postponement  of  conclusions.  In  spite  of  the  method 
adopted  the  Finance  Committee  did  not  report  until  March  8,  and 
even  then  its  report  was  only  tentative.  Under  Republican  fire  the 
consideration  of  the  bill  was  delayed,  the  Committee  giving  it  out 
that  it  had  a  more  complete  and  satisfactory  measure  in  reserve. 
When  this  was  reported  it  was  no  longer  the  Wilson  bill,  for  the 
measure  that  had  passed  the  House  was  loaded  down  with  more  than 
four  hundred  amendments.  As  thus  transformed  its  consideration 
did  not  begin  until  May  8.  The  bill,  with  its  amendments,  was  de- 
bated in  the  Senate  for  months  and  subjected  to  gradual  modifica- 
tions, generally  in  the  direction  of  increased  duties  and  additional 
inconsistencies. 


PRESIDENT  CLEVELAND'S  SECOND   ADMINISTRATION.          517 

The  debate  was  one  of  unusual  ability  and  acrimony,  especially  on 
the  Income  tax  feature,  which  was  bitterly  opposed  by  Democratic 
as  well  as  ^Republican  Senators.  Senator  Hill,  of  New  York,  took 
the  ground  that  it  was  unwise  to  incorporate  an  income  tax  into  a 
reform  bill,  or  to  attach  it  to  any  measure  of  tariff  revision.  It  was  a 
war  tax  in  time  of  peace.  Democracy  had  never  favored  such  a  tax. 
It  was  a  Populistic  measure.  It  fulfilled  no  Democratic  doctrine 
or  promise.  He  ridiculed  the  idea  that  the  United  States  should 
copy  this  form  of  taxation  from  England,  whose  form  of  government, 
natural  surroundings,  and  obligations  were  essentially  different.  But 
even  in  England  it  was  rather  tolerated  than  approved.  He  repudi- 
ated the  "  Spurious  Democracy  of  these  modern  apostles  and  proph- 
ets, who  are  part  Mugwump,  part  Populist,  and  the  least  part 
Democratic,  who  seek  to  lead  us  astray  after  false  gods,  false  theories, 
and  false  methods." 

The  arguments  against  the  Income  tax  feature  were:  (1)  That  it 
had  no  legitimate  place  in  a  tariff  reform  bill;  (2)  it  was  neither 
Democratic  nor  Republican  in  principle,  had  never  been  approved  by 
the  people,  was  a  doctrine  of  Populism;  (3)  it  was  unnecessary,  as  a 
revenue  measure;  (4)  it  was  a  direct  tax  and  therefore  unconstitu- 
tional; (5)  it  was  unequal,  unjust,  and  sectional  in  its  operations;  (6) 
it  revived  an  odious  war  tax;  (7)  its  exemptions  stamped  it  as  an  of- 
fensive piece  of  class  legislation,  all  incomes  should  be  taxed  or  none: 
(8)  it  was  retroactive;  (9)  it  usurped  a  field  of  taxation  lawfully  be- 
longing to  the  States;  (10)  it  was  inquisitorial  and  offensive;  (11)  it 
would  lead  to  conflict  between  State  and  Federal  authorities;  and 
(12)  it  selects  a  class  for  Federal  taxation.  The  Southern  and  Pop- 
ulist Senators  were  persistent  and  aggressive  in  support  of  the 
clause.  They  averred  that  the  tax  was  favored  by  a  majority  of  the 
people;  that  the  laboring  classes  thought  the  rich  were  not  bearing 
their  share  of  taxation;  that  the  officials  who  had  to  do  with  public 
moneys  were  corrupt,  and  the  rich  could  secure  from  them  lower  as- 
sessments; and  that  millionaires  were  too  numerous,  seventy  of  them 
averaging  estates  of  $37,000,000  each.  Thus  supported,  and  backed 
by  all  the  power  of  the  Administration  as  a  party  measure,  it  passed 
the  Senate  as  it  had  before  passed  the  House.  In  the  Senate,  as  in 
the  House,  its  friends  were  dissatisfied  with  it,  yet  willing  to  vote 
for  it  for  the  sake  of  party. 

The  Brice-Gorman  bill,  as  the  measure  was  called  after  its  trans- 
formation in  the  Senate  Finance  Committee,  was  still  further  dis- 
credited by  a  scandal  connecting  distinguished  Democratic  Senators 
with  the  Sugar  Trust.  The  charge  was  made  that  the  sugar  schedule 
had  been  made  a  matter  of  bargain  and  sale;  that  members  of  the 


518  HISTORY   OF   THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

Trust  had  secretly  visited  members  of  the  Senate  Finance  Committee, 
and  had  secured  a  modification  of  the  sugar  schedule  by  means  of 
which  it  would  reap  great  profits.  These  profits  were  to  be  realized 
by  placing  a  duty  on  sugar,  but  postponing  its  collection  till  January 
1,  1895,  thus  giving  the  Trust  a  chance  to  stock  up  without  duty,  but 
at  the  same  time  to  advance  the  price  of  refined  sugar  to  the  extent 
of  the  duty.  The  charge  was  further  made  that  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  had  personally  written  or  dictated  a  change  in  the  sugar 
schedule  in  accordance  with  the  wishes  of  the  Trust.  Still  another 
charge  was  made  that  the  Trust  demanded  and  obtained  this  valuable 
concession  in  pursuance  of  a  pre-existing  agreement  with  the  leaders 
of  the  Democratic  party  that  its  interests  should  be  protected  for  the 
consideration  of  a  gift  of  a  sum  of  money,  estimated  at  $500,000,  for 
campaign  purposes  in  1892.  And  again,  it  was  charged  that  informa- 
tion respecting  the  work  of  the  Finance  Committee  had  been  sent  out 
secretly  to  New  York  brokers,  and  that  Senators  had  taken  advantage 
of  this  leakage  to  speculate  in  sugar  stocks.  The  publication  of 
these  charges  dragged  the  high  character  of  the  Senate  in  the  mire, 
and  cast  a  taint  on  tariff  legislation.  An  investigation  wras  ordered. 
The  newspaper  men  who  had  made  the  exposure  refused  to  give  the 
names  of  their  informants,  and  were  turned  over  to  the  criminal 
courts  to  be  tried  for  contumacy.  The  sugar  magnates  who  were 
called  to  testify  admitted  the  giving  of  money  in  unremembered 
amounts  to  State,  but  not  National  campaigns,  on  the  score  of  busi- 
ness, and  for  which  they  expected  corresponding  benefits.  Other 
witnesses  testified  in  a  modified  way,  and  some  with  very  proper 
and  natural  excuses,  to  the  truth  of  wrhat  had  been  charged,  while 
even  Senators  wThen  called  did  not  in  every  instance  place  them- 
selves beyond  the  suspicion  that  they  had  taken  advantage  of  the  sit- 
uation to  turn  a  penny  in  sugar  stock  speculation.  The  revelations 
were  a  terrible  blow  to  the  national  pride,  and  to  every  sense  of 
honor  and  honesty,  but  they  did  not  serve  to  loosen  the  grip  which  the 
Trust  had  on  the  Senate.  On  the  contrary,  they  served  rather  to  ex- 
plain what  had  before  been  a  rumor,  that  the  position  of  the  Trust 
was  so  strong  that  the  fate  of  the  entire  Tariff  bill  depended  on  its 
getting  the  protection  it  wanted.  They  also  served  to  explain  the  in- 
difference of  the  Trust  to  the  sugar  schedule  when  the  bill  was  in  the 
House,  at  which  time  it  was  given  out  that  the  Trust  depended  on 
the  Senate  for  the  protection  it  desired.  That  there  should  have  been 
such  favoritism  shown  to  a  gigantic  trust,  at  a  time  when  the  exalted 
principle  of  tariff  reform  was  seeking  for  recognition  in  our  indus- 
trial and  commercial  economy,  wras  made  all  the  more  inexplicable 
by  the  clause  in  the  Democratic  Platform  of  1892,  which  read:  "  We 


PRESIDENT  CLEVELAND'S  SECOND   ADMINISTRATION.          519 

recognize  in  the  trusts  and  combinations  which  are  designed  to  en- 
able capital  to  secure  more  than  its  just  share  of  the  joint  product 
of  capital  and  labor  a  natural  consequence  of  the  prohibitive 
taxes  which  prevent  the  competition  which  is  the  life  of  honest  trade, 
but  believe  their  worst  evils  can  be  abated  by  law,  and  we  demand 
the  rigid  enforcement  of  the  laws  made  to  prevent  and  control  them, 
together  with  such  further  legislation  in  restraint  of  these  abuses 
as  experience  may  show  to  be  necessary." 

Why  and  how  the  Senate  amendments  came  to  be  made — amend- 
ments sufficient  in  number  to  constitute  a  newr  bill — after  the  revela- 
tions concerning  the  sugar  schedule,  was  a  subject  for  doubts  and  sus- 
picions as  midsummer  approached  with  the  bill  still  pending.  Dem- 
ocratic inability  to  legislate  on  the  Tariff  became  so  clear  as  to  be  un- 
deniable, but  tariff  legislation  of  some  kind  was  a  party  necessity. 
At  last  the  end  wras  reached  in  the  Senate,  and  the  transformed  bill 
was  passed,  July  3,  1894,  and  sent  to  the  House.  It  received  a  ma- 
jority of  five,  39  yeas  to  34  nays,  the  Populists,  Allen  of  Nebraska,  and 
Kyle  of  South  Dakota,  voting  with  the  Democrats.  Mr.  Stewart  of 
Nevada,  and  Mr.  Peffer  of  Kansas,  voted  with  the  Republicans.  Mr. 
Hill,  of  New  York,  was  the  only  Democrat  opposed  to  the  bill  who 
had  the  courage  to  vote  against  it. 

In  the  House  there  was  an  understanding  that  the  bill  should  be  re- 
ferred to  a  Conference  Committee  without  debate,  and  after  a  speech 
by  Mr.  Wilson,  this  was  done.  In  his  speech  Mr.  Wrilson  sad  that 
the  bill  had  come  back  to  the  House  with  six  hundred  and  thirty-four 
amendments  to  it,  and  that  it  no  longer  represented  the  principle 
that  revenue  taxes  under  a  tariff  should  be  levied  on  finished  products 
and  not  on  raw  materials.  Only  wool  and  lumber  came  back  undis- 
turbed by  the  Senate.  The  bill  had  been  rendered  further  unsatis- 
factory by  numerous  changes  from  ad  valorem  to  specific  or  com- 
pound rates  of  duty.  In  the  contention  in  conference  over  the  de- 
parture from  ad  valorem  rates  the  Senate  proved  the  stronger.  The 
principle  of  specific  rates  was  too  deeply  grounded  in  the  practice  of 
civilized  governments  to  be  overcome.  The  Committee  found  grounds 
for  agreement  in  many  of  the  schedules,  but  in  regard  to  the  sugar 
schedule  and  the  items  of  coal  and  iron  ore,  all  of  which  were  free  in 
the  House  bill,  the  differences  seemed  irreconcilable,  and  a  disagree- 
ment was  reported  on  July  19.  In  reporting  the  disagreement  Mr. 
Wilson  said  the  committee  on  the  part  of  the  House  could  not  accede 
to  the  Senate's  demands  without  further  instruction.  He  pointed 
out  the  difference  between  the  rates  of  duty  as  originally  fixed  in  the 
House  bill  and  as  found  in  the  Senate  bill.  In  the  course  of  his 
speech  he  said :  "  If  it  be  true,  as  stated  by  the  gentleman  from  Ohio 


520  HISTORY   OF  THE   REPUBLICAN    PARTY. 

(Mr.  Johnson),  of  which  I  have  seen  myself  some  confirmation  in  the 
press,  if  it  be  true  that  the  great  American  Sugar  Trust  has  grown 
so  strong  and  powerful  that  it  says  that  no  tariff  bill  can  pass  the 
American  Congress  in  which  its  interests  are  not  adequately  guarded; 
if,  I  say,  that  be  true,  I  hope  this  House  will  not  consent  to  an  adjourn- 
ment until  it  has  passed  a  single  bill  putting  refined  sugar  on  the 
free  list."  In  conclusion  Mr.  Wilson  eulogized  President  Cleveland, 
and  then,  to  the  astonishment  of  the  House,  read  a  letter  from  him 
dated  July  2,  1894,  and  before  the  passage  of  the  bill  in  the  Senate. 
The  letter  was  addressed  to  Mr.  Wilson,  and  had  been  in  his  private 
keeping  ever  since  its  receipt.  Mr.  Wilson  now  made  it  public  with 
President  Cleveland's  consent.  It  was  such  a  remarkable  letter,  and 
led  to  such  serious  consequences,  that  it  came  to  be  regarded  as  one 
of  the  most  momentous  chapters  in  the  history  of  the  Wilson  Tariff 
bill,  if  not  one  of  the  boldest  of  executive  attempts  to  influence  legisla- 
tion. 

"  Every  true  Democrat,"  the  President  said  in  his  letter,  "  and  every 
sincere  tariff  reformer  knows  that  this  bill  in  its  present  form  and  as 
it  will  be  submitted  to  the  Conference  Committee  falls  short  of  the 
consummation  for  which  we  have  long  labored,  for  which  we  have 
suffered  defeat  without  discouragement;  which  in  its  anticipation 
gave  us  a  rallying  cry  in  our-  day  of  triumph,  and  which,  in  its  promise 
of  accomplishment,  is  so  interwoven  with  Democratic  pledges  and 
Democratic  success,  that  our  abandonment  of  the  cause  or  of  the 
principles  upon  which  it  rests  means  party  perfidy  and  party  dis- 
honor. One  topic  will  be  submitted  to  the  conference  which  em- 
bodies Democratic  principle  so  directly  that  it  can  not  be  com- 
promised. We  have  in  our  Platforms  and  in  every  way  possible  de- 
clared in  favor  of  the  free  importation  of  raw  materials.  We  have 
again  and  again  promised  that  this  should  be  accorded  to  our  people 
and  our  manufacturers  as  soon  as  the  Democratic  party  was  invested 
with  power  to  determine  the  tariff  policy  of  the  country.  The  party 
now  has  the  power.  We  are  as  certain  to-day  as  we  ever  have  been  of 
the  great  benefit  that  would  accrue  to  the  country  from  the  inaugu- 
ration of  this  policy,  and  nothing  has  occurred  to  release  us  from  our 
obligation  to  secure  this  advantage  to  our  people.  It  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  no  tariff  measure  can  accord  with  Democratic  principles 
and  promises,  or  bear  a  genuine  Democratic  badge,  that  does  not 
provide  for  free  raw  material.  In  these  circumstances  it  may  well 
excite  our  wonder  that  Democrats  are  willing  to  depart  from  this,  the 
most  democratic  of  all  tariff  principles,  and  that  the  most  inconsis 
tent  absurdity  of  such  a  proposed  departure  should  be  emphasized 
by  the  suggestion  that  the  wool  of  the  farmer  be  put  on  the  free  list, 


PRESIDENT  CLEVELAND'S  SECOND   ADMINISTRATION.  521 

and  the  protection  of  tariff  taxation  be  placed  around  the  iron  ore 
and  coal  for  corporations  and  capitalists.  How  can  we  face  the  peo- 
ple after  indulging  in  such  outrageous  discrimination  and  violation 
of  principles?  It  is  quite  apparent  that  the  question  of  free  raw  mate- 
rials does  not  admit  of  adjustment  on  middle  ground,  since  their 
subjection  to  any  rate  of  tariff  taxation,  great  or  small,  is  alike  viola- 
tive  of  Democratic  principle  and  Democratic  good  faith.  .  .  . 
Under  our  party  platform  and  in  accordance  with  our  declared  party 
purposes,  sugar  is  a  legitimate  and  logical  article  for  revenue  tax- 
ation. Unfortunately,  however,  incidents  have  accompanied  certain 
stages  of  the  legislation  which  will  be  submitted  to  the  conference, 
that  have  aroused  in  connection  with  this  subject  a  national  Demo- 
cratic animosity  to  the  methods  and  manipulations  of  trusts  and 
combinations.  I  confess  to  sharing  in  this  feeling,  and  yet,  it  seems 
to  me,  we  ought,  if  possible,  to  sufficiently  free  ourselves  from  preju- 
dice to  enable  us  coolly  to  weigh  the  consideration  which,  in  formu- 
lating tariff  legislation,  ought  to  guide  our  treatment  of  sugar  as  a 
taxable  article.  While  no  tenderness  should  be  entertained  for 
trusts,  and  while  I  am  decidedly  opposed  to  granting  them,  under  the 
guise  of  taxation,  any  opportunity  to  further  their  particular  meth- 
ods, I  suggest  that  we  ought  not  to  be  driven  away  from  the 
Democratic  principle  and  policy  which  lead  to  the  taxation  of 
sugar  by  the  fear,  quite  likely  exaggerated,  that  in  carrying 
out  this  principle  and  policy  we  may  indirectly  and  inordi- 
nately encourage  a  combination  of  sugar-refining  interests.  I 
know  that  in  present  conditions  this  is  a  delicate  subject,  and 
I  appreciate  the  depth  and  strength  of  the  feeling  which  its 
treatment  has  aroused.  I  do  not  believe  we  should  do  evil  that 
good  may  come;  but  it  seems  to  me  that  we  should  not  forget 
that  our  aim  is  the  completion  of  a  tariff  bill,  and  that  in  taxing- 
sugar  for  proper  purposes  and  within  reasonable  bounds,  whatever 
else  may  be  said  of  our  action,  we  are  in  no  danger  of  running  counter 
to  Democratic  principles.  With  all  there  is  at  stake,  there  must  be  in 
the  treatment  of  this  article  some  ground  upon  which  we  are  all  will- 
ing to  stand,  where  toleration  and  conciliation  mav  be  allowed  to  solve 

o 

the  problem  without  demanding  the  entire  surrender  of  fixed  and 
conscientious  convictions.  ...  I  expect  very  few  of  us  can  say, 
when  our  measure  is  perfected,  that  all  its  features  are  entirely  as  we 
would  prefer.  You  know  how  much  I  deprecated  the  incorporation 
into  the  proposed  bill  of  the  income  feature.  In  matters  of  this  kind, 
however,  which  do  not  violate  a  fixed  and  recognized  Democratic 
doctrine,  we  are  willing  to  defer  to  the  judgment  of  a  majority  of  our 
Democratic  brethren." 


522  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

When  the  bill  got  back  to  the  Senate  after  the  disagreement  there 
was  a  long  and  acrimonious  debate,  in  which  Mr.  Cleveland's  letter 
was  the  principal  cause  of  the  bitterness.  The  Republicans  saw  in 
the  letter  a  concession  of  the  President  to  trusts  of  all  kinds — to  the 
Sugar  Trust,  in  his  plea  for  a  duty  on  sugar;  to  the  Nova  Scotia  Coal 
Syndicate,  in  his  plea  for  free  coal;  to  the  Cuban  Iron  Syndicate,  in 
his  plea  for  free  iron  ore,  but  some  of  the  Democratic  Senators  ac- 
cused him  of  daring  to  interfere  with  the  legislative  branch  of  the 
Government.  "  Mr.  Cleveland  is  a  big  man,"  said  Senator  Vest,  "  but 
the  Democratic  party  is  greater  than  any  one  man.  It  has  sur- 
vived Jefferson,  Madison,  Jackson;  it  will  survive  Grover  Cleveland. 
Under  what  clause  of  the  Constitution  did  Mr.  Cleveland  get  the 
right,  after  a  bill  had  been  sent  to  full  and  free  conference  between 
the  two  Houses,  to  make  any  appeal  to  his  party  friends  to  stand  by 
his  individual  views?  "  Senator  Gorman's  arraignment  of  the  Presi- 
dent was  especially  severe.  "  In  patriotism  the  Democratic  Senate," 
Mr.  Gorman  said,  "  had  gone  to  work  to  save  the  country  and  keep 
their  party  in  power,  when  suddenly  in  the  midst  of  their  work  came 
the  President's  letter.  It  was  the  most  uncalled  for,  the  most  extra- 
ordinary, the  most  unwise  communication  that  ever  came  from  a 
President  of  the  United  States.  It  placed  the  Senate  in  a  position 
where  its  members  must  see  to  it  that  the  dignity  and  honor  of  the 
chamber  must  be  preserved.  It  places  me  in  a  position  where  I  must 
tell  the  story  as  it  occurred.  The  limit  of  endurance  has  been 
reached."  He  then  went  on  to  tell  the  history  of  the  tariff  bill  after 
its  introduction  into  the  Senate.  He  showed  that  Senators  Jones  and 
Vest  had  frequent  conferences  with  the  President  and  Secretary  Car- 
lisle during  the  progress  of  the  work;  that  Secretary  Carlisle  had 
indorsed  the  completed  Senate  bill;  that  no  one  who  had  been  con- 
sulted had  ever  suggested  that  the  bill  was  in  violation  of  Demo- 
cratic principles.  Senators  were  called  to  sustain  the  truth  of  these 
assertions,  and  after  Messrs.  Vest,  Jones,  and  Harris  had  done  this 
Mr.  Gorman  proceeded  to  denounce  the  President  in  bold  and  bitter 
terms,  and  to  defend  and  uphold  the  Senate.  If  there  had  been  deceit 
anywhere,  Mr.  Gorman  declared,  it  was  with  the  President  and  not 
with  the  Senate.  This  startling  parliamentary  episode  caused  a 
profound  sensation,  and  for  a  time  it  was  believed  that  the  President's 
letter  had  made  a  break  in  the  party  that  could  not  be  closed.  Sena- 
tor Gorman's  speech  was  made  on  July  23,  and  it  wTas  not  until  August 
13,  that  a  caucus  of  Democratic  Representatives  was  held  that  re- 
sulted in  an  agreement. 

The  agreement  wTas  a  surrender  by  the  House  to  the  Senate.  It  was 
a  humiliating  surrender,  after  the  bold  utterances  and  solemn 


PRESIDENT  CLEVELAND'S  SECOND   ADMINISTRATION.          523 

pledges  of  the  Chicago  platform;  after  the  pronounced  views  and 
serious  advice  of  President  Cleveland  upon  tariff  reform;  after  the 
shameful  exposures  of  the  operations  of  the  sugar,  iron,  and  coal 
trusts,  and  their  dominancy  in  party  affairs;  after  the  pointed  letter 
of  the  President  setting  forth  the  Senate  modification  of  the  original 
Wilson  bill  as  an  act  of  "  party  perfidy  and  dishonor";  after  a  year 
of  heated  discussion  and  energetic  effort.  The  passage  of  a  series  of 
"  popgun "  bills  by  the  House  placing  sugar,  coal,  iron  ore,  and 
barbed  wire  on  the  free  list — bills  that  the  Senate  was  not  expected 
to  pass — only  added  to  the  humiliating  character  of  the  surrender 
and  to  the  proofs  of  Democratic  inaptitude  for  tariff  legislation. 

After  the  bill  reached  the  President  the  interest  in  its  fate  became 
even  greater  than  before  its  passage.  Mr.  Cleveland's  undisguised 
friendliness  for  the  original  Wilson  bill,  and  his  denunciation 
of  the  adherents  and  advocates  of  the  Senate  bill,  led  many 
persons  to  expect  that  he  would  veto  the  measure.  It  was  con- 
tended that  in  this  way  only  could  he  save  himself  from  stulti- 
fication. On  the  other  hand,  the  sentiment  that  had  in- 
duced the  surrender  of  the  House  to  the  Senate  was  now  di- 
rected toward  securing  its  approval.  The  President,  owing  to  ill- 
ness, was  absent  from  the  capital  and  gave  no  sign  of  his  intended 
action.  Even  after  his  return  to  Washington  he  refused  to  relieve 
the  tension.  Congress,  in  view  of  the  permissive  clause  of  the  Consti- 
tution making  a  bill  a  law  after  the  lapse  of  ten  days,  both  Houses 
being  in  session,  had  adjourned  to  August  28.  At  midnight 
of  the  27th  the  time  limit  expired,  and  the  Tariff  of  1894  superseded 
the  McKinley  tariff.  The  only  utterance  of  the  President  in  regard 
to  his  course  in  allowing  the  bill  to  become  a  law  without  his  sanction 
or  signature  was  in  a  letter,  dated  August  27,  addressed  to  Mr. 
Catchings,  of  Mississippi,  and  Mr.  Clarke,  of  Alabama,  in  which  he 
said  that  he  felt  the  utmost  disappointment  at  being  denied  the  priv- 
ilege to  sign  such  a  bill  as  he  had  hoped  to  see  passed — one  which 
embodied  Democratic  ideas  of  tariff  reform.  He  did  not  claim  to  be 
better  than  his  party,  nor  intend  to  shirk  any  of  his  responsibilities, 
but  the  bill  contained  provisions  not  in  the  line  of  "  honest  tariff 
reform,"  and  "  inconsistencies  and  crudities  which  ought  not  to 
appear  in  tariff  laws."  He  would  not  separate  himself  from  his  party 
by  a  "  veto  of  tariff  legislation  which,  though  disappointing,  was 
chargeable  still  to  Democratic  effort."  Besides,  there  were  incidents 
attending  the  passage  of  the  bill  in  its  later  stages  which  made  every 
"  sincere  tariff  reformer  unhappy,"  and  which  "  ought  not  to  be  tol- 
erated in  Democratic  reform  councils."  He  said  he  took  his  "  place 
with  the  rank  and  file  of  the  Democratic  party,  who  believe  in  tariff 


524  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

reform  and  who  know  what  it  is,  who  refused  to  accept  the  results 
embodied  in  this  bill  as  the  close  of  the  war,  who  are  not  blinded  to 
the  fact  that  the  livery  of  Democratic  tariff  reform  has  been  stolen 
and  worn  in  the  service  of  Republican  protection,  and  who  have 
marked  the  places  where  the  deadly  blight  of  treason  has  blasted  the 
counsels  of  the  brave  in  the  hour  of  their  might.  The  trusts  and  com- 
binations— the  communism  of  pelf — whose  machinations  have  pre- 
vented us  from  reaching  the  success  we  deserved  should  not  be  for- 
gotten nor  fonnven.  We  shall  recover  from  our  astonishment  at 

o  " 

their  exhibition  of  power,  and  then  if  the  question  is  forced  upon  us 
whether  they  shall  submit  to  the  free  legislative  will  of  the  people's 
representatives  or  shall  dictate  the  laws  which  the  people  must  obey, 
we  will  accept  that  issue  as  one  involving  the  integrity  and  safety  of 
American  institutions." 

The  letter  provoked  wide  discussion  and  received  the  severest  criti- 
cism of  the  President's  party  associates,  some  of  whom  denounced  it 
as  more  fatal  to  Democratic  political  prospects  than  his  Wilson 
letter  had  been  to  be  the  cause  of  tariff  reform.  They  refused  to  see 
in  it  an  excuse  for  not  signing  the  tariff  bill,  and  looked  upon  the 
entire  party  situation  as  far  more  complicated  and  serious  than  if 
the  President  had  signed  the  bill  without  comment. 

With  the  passage  of  the  Tariff  Act  of  1894  the  Reciprocity  Act  of 
1890  was  repealed.  Reciprocity  was  in  no  sense  a  party  problem,  but 
one  of  plain  business.  To  sustain  it  helped  no  party.  There  had 
grown  up  about  it,  and  by  means  of  it,  treaties  with  nearly  every 
country  to  the  south  of  us,  and  with  many  in  Europe,  establishing 
commerce  on  a  reciprocal  basis.  They  fell  to  the  ground  with  repeal, 
much  to  the  regret  of  all  treaty  countries,  and  to  the  anger  and  con- 
tempt of  not  a  few  of  them.  The  countries  of  Europe,  with  which 
reciprocity  treaties  had  been  made,  entered  their  protests  in  our  State 
Department.  These  protests  passed  unheeded.  They,  therefore, 
began  a  system  of  retaliation  by  excluding  our  products  from  their 
ports,  much  to  our  commercial  detriment,  and  especially  to  the  injury 
of  our  agricultural  interests.  The  milling  interests,  live  stock  indus- 
tries, and  manufactures  of  furniture  and  farming  implements  in  this 
country  felt  the  loss  of  reciprocity  to  a  lamentable  extent.  The 
largely  increased  export  trade,  especially  to  Cuba,  Brazil,  and  other 
important  countries,  which  had  come  about  under  reciprocity,  fell  off 
and  the  old  trade  balance  against  us  was  re-established.  Thus  a 
tariff  which  had  required  more  than  a  year  for  its  passage,  and  that 
satisfied  nobody,  became  an  agency  for  the  humiliation  of  the  coun- 
try, and  for  the  destruction  of  American  trade  as  well  as  American 
industries. 


PRESIDENT  CLEVELAND'S  SECOND   ADMINISTRATION.          525 

Just  before  the  expiration  of  President  Harrison's  term  he  sent  to 
the  Senate  a  Treaty  for  the  annexation  of  Hawaii.  This  treaty  was 
pending  when  Mr.  Cleveland  was  inaugurated,  but  five  days  after- 
ward it  was  withdrawn  and  its  withdrawal  was  followed  by  efforts  to 
subvert  the  Provisional  Government  of  Hawaii  and  to  restore  the 
deposed  queen.  The  President's  course  defeated  annexation  for  the 
time,  but  the  open  effort  to  restore  the  Hawaiian  monarchy  tended 
to  make  the  Administration  unpopular,  especially  as  it  was  attended 
by  circumstances  that  afforded  ground  for  ridicule  of  the  President 
and  his  advisers.  The  majority  in  Congress  sustained  the  President's 
policy  with  reluctance  and  the  people  repudiated  it  at  the  polls.  The 
effects  of  the  reaction  that  began  with  the  Democratic  triumph  in 
1892  were  felt  in  the  elections  of  1893,  and  were  destined  to  assume 
fuller  proportions  in  1894.  The  large  Democratic  majority  in  the 
House  was  overturned  by  an  equally  large  Republican  majority  in  the 
54th  Congress,  and  the  election  of  a  Republican  President  in  1896  was 
clearly  foreshadowed. 

The  Senate  in  the  54th  Congress  contained  44  Republicans,  39  Dem- 
ocrats, and  6  Populists,  but  as  the  Populists  generally  voted  with  the 
Democrats  the  Republicans  were  powerless.  The  new  Republican 
Senators  were  John  H.  Gear,  of  Iowa;  Lucien  Baker,  of  Kansas; 
Knute  Nelson,  of  Minnesota;  Thomas  H.  Carter,  of  Montana;  John  M. 
Thurston,  of  Nebraska;  William  J.  Sewell,  of  New  Jersey;  George  W. 
McBride,  of  Oregon;  G.  Peabody  Wetmore,  of  Rhode  Island;  Arthur 
Brown  and  Frank  J.  Cannon,  of  Utah;  Stephen  B.  Elkins,  of  West 
Virginia,  and  Francis  E.  Warren,  of  Wyoming.  A  Republican  Sena- 
tor ought  to  have  been  chosen  from  Delaware  to  succeed  Anthony 
Higgins,  but  owing  to  a  factional  fight  in  that  State  there  was  no 
election.  The  Republican  Senators  who  were  re-elected  were  Edward 
O.  Wolcott,  of  Colorado;  George  L.  Shoup,  of  Idaho;  Shelby  M.  Cul- 
lom,  of  Illinois;  William  P.  Frye,  of  Maine;  George  F.  Hoar,  of  Mas- 
sachusetts; James  McMillan,  of  Michigan;  William  E.  Chandler,  of 
New  Hampshire;  and  Richard  F.  Pettigrew,  of  South  Dakota.  The 
other  Republican  Senators  were  George  C.  Perkins,  of  California; 
Henry  M.  Teller,  of  Colorado;  Orville  H.  Platt  and  Joseph  R.  Hawley, 
of  Connecticut;  Frederick  T.  Dubois,  of  Idaho;  William  B.  Allison,  of 
Iowa;  Eugene  Hale,  of  Maine;  Henry  C.  Lodge,  of  Massachusetts; 
Julius  C.  Burrows,  of  Michigan;  Cushman  K.  Davis,  of  Minnesota; 
Lee  Mantle,  of  Montana;  Jacob  H.  Gallinger,  of  New  Hampshire; 
Jeter  C.  Pritchard,  of  North  Carolina;  Henry  C.  Hansbrough,  of 
North  Dakota;  John  Sherman,  of  Ohio;  John  H.  Mitchell,  of  Oregon; 
J.  Donald  Cameron  and  Matthew  S.  Quay,  of  Pennsylvania;  Nelson 
W.  Aldrich,  of  Rhode  Island;  Justin  S.  Morrill  and  Redfield  Proctor, 


526  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

of  Vermont;  Watson  C.  Squire  and  John  L.  Wilson,  of  Washington; 
and  Clarence  D.  Clark,  of  Wyoming.  It  was  a  Senate  that  left  neither 
party  in  power  in  the  last  years  of  Mr.  Cleveland's  administration. 

In  the  House  of  Representatives  the  pendulum  swung  as  far  for- 
ward as  it  had  swung  backward  in  the  53d  Congress.  There  were  full 
Republican  delegations  from  sixteen  States — Connecticut,  Illinois, 
Indiana,  Iowa,  Maine,  Michigan,  Minnesota,  New  Hampshire,  New 
Jersey,  Oregon,  Rhode  Island,  South  Dakota,  Vermont,  Washington, 
West  Virginia,  and  Wisconsin;  not  to  speak  of  the  States  that  had 
only  one  Representative — Delaware,  Idaho,  Montana,  North  Dakota, 
Utah,  and  Wyoming.  California  elected  six  Republicans  to  one 
Democrat;  Colorado  one  Republican  to  one  Populist;  Kansas  seven 
Republicans  to  one  Populist;  Kentucky  five  Republicans  to  six  Dem- 
ocrats; Maryland  three  Republicans  to  three  Democrats;  Massachu- 
setts twelve  Republicans  to  one  Democrat;  Missouri  eleven  Republi- 
cans to  four  Democrats;  Nebraska  five  Republicans  to  one  Populist; 
New  York  twenty-nine  Republicans  to  five  Democrats;  North  Caro- 
lina three  Republicans  to  four  Populists  and  two  Democrats;  Ohio 
nineteen  Republicans  to  two  Democrats;  Pennsylvania  twTenty-eight 
Republicans  to  two  Democrats;  Tennessee  four  Republicans  to  six 
Democrats;  and  Virginia  two  Republicans  to  eight  Democrats.  A 
Republican  was  elected  in  three  of  the  Southern  States — Alabama, 
South  Carolina,  and  Texas — leaving  unbroken  to  the  Solid  South 
only  Arkansas,  Florida,  Georgia,  Louisiana,  and  Mississippi.  The 
country  repudiated  the  Wilson-Gorman-Brice  Tariff  before  it  was 
tried.  It  was  to  a  hostile  Congress  that  President  Cleveland  came 
with  his  plea  for  financial  relief  in  his  third  annual  message. 

Before  the  54th  Congress  met  in  December,  1895,  the  income  tax 
feature  of  the  Tariff  of  1890  was  declared  unconstitutional  by  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  All  the  while  the  Treasury  con- 
dition was  growing  worse.  The  gold  reserve  could  not  be  preserved, 
and  the  deficit  was  increasing  daily.  In  order  to  meet  the  expenses 
of  the  Government  and  preserve  the  National  Credit,  a  resort  was 
had  to  borrowing.  150,000,000  bonds  were  sold  in  order  to  replenish 
the  Treasury.  This  did  not  last  long,  and  another,  and  still  a  third 
issue,  became  necessary,  making  a  total  of  |262,000,000,  in  a  little 
over  a  year.  This  use  of  bonds  in  order  to  keep  the  Treasury  in  funds 
was  highly  exasperating  to  the  free-silver  coinage  sentiment  in  the 
Democratic  party,  while  the  country  at  large  felt  great  disappoint- 
ment over  the  fact  that  the  Wilson  Tariff  was  falling  so  far  below  the 
expectations  and  promises  of  its  projectors  in  providing  revenue 
sufficient  for  the  needs  of  Government  in  time  of  peace.  In  the  first 
year  of  the  operation  of  the  McKinley  Tariff  Act  the  Government 


PRESIDENT  CLEVELAND'S  SECOND  ADMINISTRATION.          527 

receipts  were  $37,239,762  in  excess  of  expenditures.  In  1892  the 
receipts  were  $9,904,453  greater  than  expenses,  and  in  1893,  $2,341,674 
greater.  In  the  first  year  of  the  operation  of  the  Wilson  Tariff  Act, 
the  Government  receipts  ran  $42,805,223  behind  expenses,  and  in  the 
second  year  about  $30,000,000  behind.  In  1893,  under  the  McKinley 
Act,  the  importation  of  woolen  goods  amounted  only  to  $36,000,000 
in  value,  from  which  the  Treasury  received  $34,000,000  in  revenue. 
Under  the  new  tariff,  in  1895,  notwithstanding  the  reduced  per  capita 
consumption  of  such  goods,  the  importation  aggregated  $60,000,000, 
from  which  the  Government  received  a  revenue  of  only  $27,000,000. 
From  wool  and  woolens  together  the  Government  obtained  a  revenue 
of  nearly  $44,000,000  in  1892,  and  only  $27,000,000  in  1895.  Here  was 
a  loss  of  $17,000,000  revenue  in  these  two  articles.  At  the  same  time 
the  manufacture  of  $30,000,000  of  woolen  goods  was  transferred  to 
Europe.  For  the  fiscal  year  of  1894,  the  last  full  year  under  the  Mc- 
Kinley law,  the  exports  of  manufactures  amounted  to  $183,718,484  in 
value.  For  the  calendar  year  1895,  the  first  full  official  year  under 
the  Wilson  law,  the  exports  of  manufactures  were  $201,152,771,  an 
increase  of  $17,434,287.  But  the  exports  of  agricultural  products  in 
the  corresponding  period  showed  a  net  decline  of  $82,648,663.  Hence 
the  country  gained  in  the  exports  of  manufactures  $17,434,287,  and  it 
lost  in  the  exports  of  agricultural  products  $82,648,663,  or  a  net  loss 
of  $65,214,356  in  the  exports  of  these  two  classes  in  a  single  year.  In 
the  total  exports  there  was  a  net  loss  of  $69,000,000  in  the  first  calen- 
dar year  of  the  new  tariff  as  compared  with  the  last  fiscal  year  of  the 
old  tariff.  But  when  the  imports  are  taken  also  into  consideration  the 
difference  is  still  greater.  Under  the  McKinley  tariff  in  the  period 
mentioned  the  imports  were  $654,994,622.  Under  the  Wilson  tariff 
they  were  $801,663,490,  showing  a  net  increase  of  imports  of  $146,- 
668,868.  Add  that  amount  to  the  net  loss  in  exports  and  it  shows  a. 
change  in  the  trade  balance  of  the  United  States  of  $215,000,000  on 
the  wrong  side  of  the  balance  sheet.  The  House  came  to  the  Presi- 
dent's rescue  with  a  provisional  tariff  bill  designed  to  increase  the 
customs  revenue,  but  this  could  not  be  passed  in  the  Senate  owing 
to  the  attitude  of  parties  in  that  body.  An  administration  that  began 
in  gloom  wras  ending  in  disaster. 

It  was  under  these  conditions  that  the  political  parties  began  to 
prepare  for  the  campaign  of  1896, 


IV. 

THE   CAMPAIGN   OF   1896. 

Free  Coinage  of  Silver  a  Party  Menace — Bolt  of  Free  Silver  Pro- 
hibitionists— Popularity  of  William  McKinley — Republican 
National  Convention  at  St.  Louis — Opposition  to  McKinley— 
The  Platform — Mr.  Foraker's  Nominating  Speech — The  Ballot — 
Analysis  of  the  Vote— The  Gold  Plank— Garret  A.  Hobart  for 
Vice-President — Democratic  National  Convention — Silver  Men 
Reject  Hill  for  Temporary  Chairman — Senator  Daniel  Chosen- 
Contest  Over  the  Platform — Free  Silver  Triumphs — Mr.  Bryan's 
Speech — Candidates — The  Ballots — Bryan  and  Sewall  Nomi- 
nated— The  Campaign — Mr.  McKinley  at  Canton — Bryan's  Tours 
and  Speeches — The  Candidates  Contrasted — Mark  Hanna — Dem- 
ocratic and  Populist  Fusion — Result  of  the  Elections. 


S  the  time  approached  for  the  meeting  of  the  National  Con- 
ventions of  189G  the  sentiment  in  favor  of  the  free  coinage 
of  silver,  which  the  Populists  had  made  a  feature  of  their 
platform  in  1892,  but  which  had  been  a  subject  of  discus- 
sion and  agitation  ever  since  1878,  presented  a  menacing  front  to 
both  political  parties.  In  the  Southern  and  Western  States  it  had 
become  a  pervading  influence  in  the  Democratic  party.  The  Demo- 
crats stood  in  awe  of  it  because  they  had  coquetted  with  it  and 
encouraged  it  to  secure  the  election  of  a  President  whose  adminis- 
tration outraged  and  repudiated  it.  It  threatened  the  allegiance  to 
the  Republican  party  of  many  Republicans  in  the  mining  States,  but 
it  was  not  a  serious  menace  even  in  these,  because  the  more  important 
principle  of  Protection  served  to  modify  and  thwart  it.  But  it  sought 
to  obtrude  itself  upon  all  companies  and  to  force  itself  into  every 
platform.  -  Its  advocates,  calling  themselves  "  broad-gaugers," 
appeared  even  at  the  Prohibition  Convention  held  at  Pittsburg,  May 
27,  1896,  demanding  recognition  of  the  free  coinage  of  silver  as  one 
of  the  tenets  of  the  party,  and  mustered  a  strength  of  387  to  427  in 
support  of  their  demand.  When  they  failed  they  seceded  from  the 
Convention,  and  organized  another  party  for  the  Presidential  contest. 
It  was  understood  that  the  friends  of  free  silver  contemplated  a  sim- 
ilar policy  for  the  Republican  National  Convention,  and  a  "  bolt " 
was  actually  attempted,  the  success  of  which  would  have  been 
pathetic  had  not  its  failure  turned  out  to  be  dismal.  Neither  the 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1896.  529 

device  nor  the  demand  could  hope  to  succeed,  because  the  Republi- 
can masses  in  1896  had  a  candidate  whom  they  regarded  as  the 
exponent  and  embodiment  of  the  principles  of  the  party. 

There  was  hardly  a  time  between  1892  and  1896  when  Republican 
sentiment  did  not  point  to  Major  McKinley  as  a  Presidential  neces- 
sity. There  were  other  aspirants  for  the  nomination,  all  well 
equipped  for  the  place,  and  enjoying  the  respect  and  confidence  of  the 
Republican  party,  but  no  name  inspired  the  masses  with  such  hope 
and  enthusiasm  as  that  of  McKinley.  As  the  State  Conventions  met 
in  their  order  to  choose  delegates  to  the  National  Convention  at  St. 
Louis,  it  became  manifest  that  the  popular  tide  was  running  irre- 
sistibly in  his  favor.  No  such  uprising  of  the  people  in  behalf  of  a 
candidate  had  been  witnessed  since  Lincoln  had  been  named  for  a 
second  term.  The  mighty  uprising  sprang  from  the  eager,  passionate 
determination  of  the  people  to  retrieve  the  stupendous  mistake  of 
1892,  with  its  blight  of  panic  and  depression,  and  to  restore  the  prin- 
ciples and  policies  of  which  McKinley  was  the  foremost  representa- 
tive. His  whole  congressional  career  had  been  a  series  of  courageous 
battles  for  protection.  In  1888  he  had  led  the  opposition  to  the  Mills 
bill.  After  the  reverses  of  1890  and  1892  he  upheld  the  banner  of 
protection  on  a  thousand  platforms  all  over  the  land,  and  McKinley 
and  protection  w<ere  everywhere  associated  in  the  public  mind.  His 
pleasing  voice,  practical  arguments,  persuasive  address  and  indefatig- 
able effort,  had  made  him  the  pre-eminent  exponent  of  the  cause 
which  appealed  so  loudly  to  the  industrial  and  business  elements  of 
the  country. 

Nearly  a  week  before  the  time  fixed  for  the  meeting  of  the  Republi- 
can National  Convention,  the  eleventh  in  the  history  of  the  party,  the 
National  Committee  met  at  St.  Louis  to  arrange  the  preliminaries. 
It  was  soon  found  that  McKinley's  strength  in  the  Committee  was 
overwhelming — 38  to  7  in  a  test  vote.  The  Convention  met  on  Tues- 
day, June  16,  1896,  C.  W.  Fairbanks,  of  Indiana,  being  made  tempo- 
rary chairman.  The  next  day  the  permanent  organization  was 
effected,  with  John  M.  Thurston,  of  Nebraska,  as  President  of  the 
Convention.  Major  McKinley's  nomination  being  conceded,  the  inter- 
est centered  on  the  money  plank  of  the  platform.  Although  it  was 
known  that  a  few  delegates  from  the  mining  States  would  insist  upon 
a  free-silver  coinage  plank,  it  was  not  their  demands  that  had  the 
first  place  in  the  controversies  that  engaged  the  attention  of  the  dele- 
gates and  the  members  of  the  Committee.  Major  McKinley's  oppo- 
nents alleged  that  he  was  in  favor  of  a  "  straddle  "  —that  he  would 
prefer  an  ambiguous  declaration  on  the  currrency  question  to  a 
straightforward  acceptance  of  a  gold  standard.  When  the  Platform 


530  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

was  reported  it  was  found  to  have  the  true  Republican  ring.  It  was 
emphatic  on  the  cardinal  principles  of  the  party — a  tariff  so  levied  as 
to  protect  American  industries  and  a  currency  redeemable  in  gold  or 
its  equivalent.  It  was  adopted  by  812$  votes  to  110$,  the  latter  repre- 
senting the  silver  strength  in  the  Convention.  After  its  adoption  the 
silver  men,  headed  by  Senator  Teller,  of  Colorado,  withdrew,  thus 
making  the  second  bolt  in  the  national  conventions  of  1896. 

When  the  time  came  for  the  formal  nomination  of  candidates  for 
President  of  the  United  States  five  names  were  placed  before  the 
Convention — William  B.  Allison  of  Iowa,  Thomas  B.  Reed  of  Maine, 
Levi  P.  Morton  of  New  York,  Matthew  S.  Quay  of  Pennsylvania,  and 
William  McKinley  of  Ohio.  The  nominating  speech  in  Mr.  McKin- 
ley's  behalf  was  made  by  Senator  Foraker.  "  No  other  name,"  Mr. 
Foraker  said,  after  the  tumult  that  attended  the  mention  of  William 
McKinley  had  subsided,  "  so  completely  meets  the  requirements  of 
the  occasion,  and  no  other  name  so  absolutely  commands  all  hearts. 
The  shafts  of  envy  and  malice  and  slander  and  libel  and  detraction, 
that  have  been  aimed  at  him,  lie  broken  and  harmless  at  his  feet.  The 
quiver  is  empty,  and  he  is  untouched.  That  is  because  the  people 
know  him,  trust  him,  believe  in  him,  love  him,  and  will  not  permit  any 
human  power  to  disparage  him  unjustly  in  their  estimation.  They 
know  that  he  is  an  American  of  Americans.  They  know  that  he  is 
just  and  able  and  brave,  and  they  want  him  for  President  of  the 
United  States.  They  have  already  shown  it — not  in  this  or  that  State, 
nor  in  this  or  that  section,  but  in  all  the  States  and  in  all  sections 
from  ocean  to  ocean,  and  from  the  Gulf  to  the  Lakes.  They  expect  of 
you  to  give  them  a  chance  to  vote  for  him.  It  is  our  duty  to  do  it.  If 
we  discharge  that  duty  we  will  give  joy  to  their  hearts,  enthusiasm  to 
their  souls,  and  triumphant  victory  to  our  cause.  And  he,  in  turn, 
will  give  us  an  administration  under  which  the  country  will  enter  on 
a  new  era  of  prosperity  at  home  and  of  glory  and  honor  abroad.  By 
all  these  tokens  of  the  present  and  all  these  promises  of  the  future, 
in  the  name  of  the  forty-six  delegates  of  Ohio,  I  submit  his  claim  to 
your  consideration." 

There  was  only  one  ballot,  the  vote  being:  McKinley,  661$;  Reed, 
84$;  Quay,  61$;  Morton,  57;  Allison,  35$,  and  J.  Donald  Cameron,  1. 
The  surprising  thing  about  the  vote  was  the  ostentatious  weakness 
of  all  the  candidates  opposed  to  McKinley.  Allison  held  the 
twenty-six  votes  of  his  own  State  intact,  but  apart  from  the  personal 
loyalty  of  Iowa  he  had  only  half  a  vote  from  Louisiana,  one  vote  re- 
spectively from  New  York,  the  District  of  Columbia,  and  Oklahoma, 
and  three  votes  each  from  Texas  and  Utah.  Morton's  showing  was 
equally  unsatisfactory.  He  held  only  fifty-four  votes  out  of  the 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF 


531 


seventy-two  in  his  own  delegation,  seventeen  going  to  McKinley  and 
one  to  Allison.  Quay  did  better  with  the  Pennsylvania  delegation, 
only  six  delegates  getting  under  cover,  while  fifty-eight  preferred  to 
remain  outside  of  the  breastworks.  Reed's  backing  was  the  worst 
exhibit  on  the  slate.  He  obtained  the  undivided  vote  of  only  three 
of  the  New  England  States,  Maine,  New  Hampshire,  and  Rhode 
Island,  twenty-nine  votes  from  Massachusetts,  and  five  votes  from 
Connecticut.  The  entire  Vermont  delegation  went  over  to  McKinley, 
Eeed's  scattering  support  from  the  South  and  Southwest — two  votes 
from  Alabama,  two  from  Georgia,  twTo  from  Illinois,  four  from 
Louisiana,  one  from  Maryland,  one  from  New  Jersey,  two  and  a  half 
from  North  Carolina,  five 
from  Texas,  and  one  each 
from  Virginia,  the  District 
of  Columbia,  and  Oklahoma 
—showing  that  he  was  not 
a  factor  in  the  fight. 

On  the  morning  after  the 
nomination  one  of  the  New 
York  papers  gravely  an- 
nounced, in  summing  up 
the  results,  that  Thomas  C. 
Platt  and  his  friends  com- 
pelled Mr.  Hanna,  Mr.  Mc- 
Kinley's  representative  at 
St.  Louis,  to  accept  the  gold 
plank  in  the  platform. 
"  Mark  Hanna,"  it  said, 
"  wanted  to  nominate  Mc- 
Kinley on  an  ambiguous 
platform.  The  carefully 

planned  nomination  could  not  be  beaten;  but  Mr.  Platt,  with  the 
intelligent  and  courageous  help  of  the  Reed  men,  forced  Mr. 
Hanna  to  come  out  into  the  open.  He  forced  the  Republicans 
from  a  cowardly  evasion  into  a  straightforward  declaration." 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  use  of  the  word  "  gold "  in  the  Re- 
publican platform  was  a  matter  of  such  supreme  indifference 
that  the  friends  of  McKinley  would  not  have  been  justified  in  re- 
fusino;  to  assent  to  it.  Had  it  not  been  a  matter  of  indifference— 

^ 

had  not  the  Republican  party  been  a  gold  party,  either  with  or 
without  a  declaration  on  the  subject — McKinley's  strength  in  the 
Convention  was  so  great  that  it  would  have  been  impossible  for 
Platt  to  "  force  "  Hanna. 


GARRET    A.    HOBART. 


532  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

For  Vice-President  Garret  A.  Hobart,  of  New  Jersey,  was  nomi- 
nated on  the  first  ballot,  receiving  533i  votes  to  301^  for  all  the  others. 
His  principal  competitor  was  H.  Clay  Evans,  of  Tennessee,  who  re- 
ceived 277^  votes.  New  Jersey  demanded  his  nomination.  "  Not 
for  himself,  but  for  our  State,"  said  Judge  J.  Franklin  Fort,  in  plac- 
ing his  name  before  the  Convention;  "  not  for  his  ambition  but  to 
give  to  the  nation  the  highest  type  of  public  official,  do  we  come  to 
this  Convention  by  the  command  of  our  State,  and,  in  the  name  of  the 
Kepublican  party  of  New  Jersey — unconquered  and  unconquerable, 
undivided  and  indivisible — with  our  united  voice  speaking  for  all  that 
counts  for  good  citizenship  in  our  State,  nominate  to  you  for  the  of- 
fice of  Vice-President  of  the  Republic,  Garret  A.  Hobart,  of  New 
Jersey." 

So  far  as  the  Republicans  were  concerned  there  was  no  silver  ques- 
tion in  the  campaign,  but  with  the  Democrats  the  issue  was  a  real 
one — a  real  issue  on  a  false  basis.  The  attempt  to  engraft  free  silver 
upon  the  Kepublican  Platform  had  failed,  but  it  was  certain,  before 
the  meeting  of  the  Democratic  National  Convention  on  July  7,  that 
the  silver  men  would  succeed  in  making  it  the  dominating  feature  in 
the  Democratic  Platform.  They  wrere  in  the  majority  in  the  Con- 
vention and  they  soon  showed  that  it  was  an  aggressive  majority. 
Although  contrary  to  Democratic  precedents  and  practice,  the  re- 
commendation of  David  Keunett  Hill,  of  New  York,  for  temporary 
chairman,  by  the  National  Committee,  was  set  aside,  and  John  W. 
Daniel,  of  Virginia,  was  chosen  by  the  silver  men.  The  vote  by 
which  this  was  accomplished  was:  Daniel,  550;  Hill,  349;  not  voting, 
1.  The  man  who  did  not  vote  was  Senator  Hill.  The  States  that 
voted  solidly  against  Hill  were:  Alabama,  Arkansas,  California,  Col- 
orado, Georgia,  Idaho,  Illinois,  Indiana,  Iowa,  Kansas,  Kentucky, 
Louisiana,  Mississippi,  Missouri,  Montana,  Nevada,  North  Carolina, 
North  Dakota,  Ohio,  Oregon,  South  Carolina,  Tennessee,  Texas,  Utah, 
and  Wyoming.  The  States  that  voted  solidly  for  Hill  were:  Con- 
necticut, Delaware,  Massachusetts,  Michigan,  Nebraska,  New  Hamp- 
shire, New  Jersey,  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  Rhode  Island,  South 
Dakota,  Vermont,  and  Wisconsin.  The  States  that  were  split  on  the 
question  were:  Maine,  Maryland,  Minnesota,  Washington,  and  West 
Virginia.  The  Territories  played  little  part  in  the  program.  Ex- 
cept for  Senator  Daniel's  vote  the  vote  of  Virginia  was  solidly  for 
its  own  favorite  son  and  against  Senator  Hill.  The  silver  men  in 
the  Convention  accepted  every  recommendation  made  by  the  Na- 
tional Committee  except  the  one  to  make  Senator  Hill  temporary 
chairman.  They  singled  Senator  Hill  out  for  defeat,  and  easily  ac- 
complished their  purpose. 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1896.  533 

Senator  Daniel,  on  taking  the  chair,  expressed  profound  gratitude 
for  the  honor  conferred  upon  him,  and  his  regret  that  his  name  should 
have  been  brought  in  even  the  most  courteous  competition  with  his 
distinguished  friend,  Senator  Hill,  who  would  readily  recognize  the 
fact,  however,  that  there  was  no  personality  in  the  matter.  It  was 
solely  due  to  the  principle  which  the  great  majority  of  Democrats 
stood  for,  Mr.  Daniel  standing  with  them.  As  the  majority  of  the 
Convention  was  not  personal  in  its  aims  neither  was  it  sectional. 
It  began  with  the  sunrise  in  Maine  and  spread  into  a  sunburst  in 
Louisiana  and  Texas.  It  stretched  in  unbroken  lines  across  the  con- 
tinent, from  Virginia  and  Georgia  to  California.  It  swept  like  a 
prairie  fire  over  Iowa  and  Kansas,  and  it  lighted  up  the  horizon  in 
Nebraska.  When  he  saw  that  grand  array,  and  thought  of  the 
British  gold  standard  that  was  recently  unfurled  over  the  ruins  of 
Republican  promises  in  St.  Louis,  he  thought  of  the  battle  of  New 
Orleans,  of  which  it  had  been  said: 

"  There  stood  John  Bull  in  martial  pomp, 
But  there  was  Old  Kentucky." 

The  whole  speech  was  an  argument  for  free  silver  and  against  a 
gold  standard.  On  the  second  day  the  permanent  organization  was 
effected  by  the  selection  of  Stephen  M.  White,  of  California,  as  perma- 
nent President  of  the  Convention,  and  the  contested  seats  from  Mich- 
igan and  Nebraska  were  settled  in  favor  of  the  contesting  silver  dele- 
gates from  both  States.  The  Committee  on  Resolutions  did  not  re- 

o 

port  until  the  third  day.  In  the  meantime  a  terrific  battle  had  been 
fought  in  the  Committee.  The  silver  men  were  determined  that  the 
Platform  should  be  a  plain  and  unequivocal  statement  of  their  prin- 
ciples, while  the  u  gold  bugs  "  sought  such  modifications  as  would 
serve  to  stave  off  a  party  breach,  and  reconcile  the  country  to  the 
Platform  declarations.  The  results  of  this  struggle  were  majority 
and  minority  reports,  with  an  appeal  to  the  Convention  for  final  set- 
tlement. These  reports  meant  a  day  of  angry  struggle.  The  silver 
men  grew  firmer  in  their  attitude,  and  more  pronounced  in  their 
views.  The  gold  men  tried  all  expedients  of  oratory  and  delay  to 
accomplish  something  favorable  to  themselves.  Senator  Jones,  of 
Arkansas,  read  the  majority  report,  and  J.  II.  Wade,  of  Ohio,  fol- 
loAved  by  reading  the  minority  report.  The  issue  was  thus  drawn  in 
Convention.  Senator  Tillman,  of  South  Carolina,  sprang  to  the  rescue 
of  the  majority  platform  in  a  speech  filled  with  fiery  invective  and 
bitter  denunciation  of  the  Cleveland  administration.  It  was  so  par- 
tisan and  sectional  that  Senator  Jones,  of  Arkansas,  sought  to  give  a 


534  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

non-sectional  turn  to  the  discussion  by  declaring  that  free  silver  coin- 
age was  national,  and,  as  a  cause,  had  adherents  in  every  State.  Then 
came  the  turn  of  Senator  Hill,  of  New  York.  When  Mr.  Hill  was 
followed  in  equally  eloquent  and  pathetic  strains  by  Senator  Vilas, 
of  Wisconsin,  and  ex-Governor  Russell,  of  Massachusetts,  the  climax 
of  excitement  was  supposed  to  have  been  reached.  But  not  so;  the 
demonstration  that  greeted  Russell's  peroration  was  quickly  sub- 
merged by  that  which  welcomed  the  appearance  of  William  J. 
Bryan. 

Mr.  Russell's  speech  was  in  the  nature  of  a  farewell  to  the  old 
Democracy.  "  I  have  but  one  word  to  say,"  he  began;  "  I  am  con- 
scious, painfully  conscious,  that  the  mind  of  this  Convention  is  not 
and  has  not  been  open  to  argument.  I  know  the  will  of  this  great 
majority,  which  has  seen  fit  to  override  precedents  and  attacks  the 
sovereignty  of  States,  is  to  rigidly  enforce  its  views.  I  know  full 
well  that  an  appeal  also  will  fall  on  deaf  ears.  There  is  but  one 
thing  left,  to  enter  my  protest.  I  do  so,  not  in  anger  or  in  bitterness, 
but  with  a  feeling  of  infinite  sorrow.  Our  country,  if  not  this  Con- 
vention, will  listen  to  our  protest." 

Mr.  Bryan's  speech  was  a  strong  plea  for  free  silver  and  against  a 
gold  standard;  a  defense  of  the  Income  tax,  and  an  arraignment  of 
the  Supreme  Court.  It  closed  with  two  figures  of  speech  character- 
istic of  Western  oratory.  "  If  they  dare  to  come  out,"  he  said, 
aiming  his  shafts  at  the  sound  money  Democrats  in  the  Convention, 
"  and  in  the  open  defend  the  gold  standard  as  a  good  thing,  we  shall 
fight  them  to  the  uttermost,  having  behind  us  the  producing  masses 
•of  this  nation  and  the  world.  Having  behind  us  the  commercial  in- 
terests and  the  laboring  interests,  and  all  the  toiling  masses,  we  shall 
answer  their  demands  for  a  gold  standard  by  saying  to  them,  l  You 
shall  not  press  down  upon  the  brow  of  Labor  this  crown  of  thorns. 
You  shall  not  crucify  man  on  a  cross  of  gold.'  "  At  the  conclusion  of 
Mr.  Bryan's  speech  the  whole  Convention  sprang  to  its  feet,  and 
20,000  throats  roared,  while  twice  20,000  arms  waved  frantically. 
Handkerchiefs  and  flags  flew  wildly.  Hats  were  hurled  aloft.  Um- 
brellas were  waved.  Men  shouted  like  maniacs.  Suddenly  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Texas  delegation  uprooted  the  banner  of  the  Lone  Star 
State  and  carried  it  to  where  stood  the  standard  of  Nebraska.  Other 
delegates  grasped  the  staffs  of  their  delegations  and  pushed  their  way 
to  the  Nebraska  delegation.  Soon  the  staffs  of  two-thirds  of  the 
States  were  grouped  about  the  purple  standard  of  Bryan's  State. 
Only  the  standards  of  Connecticut,  Delaware,  Massachusetts,  Maine, 
Minnesota,  New  York,  New  Jersey,  New  Hampshire,  Vermont,  South 
Dakota,  Rhode  Island,  and  Pennsylvania  were  left  standing  when 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1896.  535 

the  demonstration  was  at  its  height.  After  five  minutes  of  this  tur- 
bulence, the  crowd  sank  back  exhausted.  When  all  were  seated, 
Delegate  Saulsbury,  of  Delaware,  climbed  upon  his  chair.  He  and 
his  three  silver  colleagues  from  that  State  gave  three  cheers  for 
Bryan,  which  was  answered  with  a  shout  from  the  gallery  of  "  What's 
the  matter  with  Bryan  for  President?  " 

The  evening  session  was  devoted  to  placing  candidates  in  nomina- 
tion. Mr.  Bland  was  nominated  by  Senator  Vest,  Mr.  Matthews  by 
Senator  Turpie,  and  Mr.  Boies  by  Senator  White.  When  Georgia 
was  called,  Colonel  H.  T.  Lewis  rose,  and,  after  a  few  words,  sub- 
mitted the  name  of  William  J.  Bryan,  of  Nebraska.  "  He  needs  no 
speech  to  recommend  him,"  said  Colonel  Lewis.  The  words  exploded 
another  mine  of  the  same  fiery  sort  which  the  Nebraskan  had  in- 
flamed with  his  own  oratory  a  few  hours  before.  The  work  of  bal- 
loting was  postponed  till  Friday,  July  10.  The  indications  now  all 
pointed  to  Bryan,  though  several  other  candidates  were  to  be  placed 
in  the  field.  It  was  to  be  as  exciting  a  day  as  the  previous  one, 
though  without  its  acerbities.  A  melancholy  and  painful  part  of  the 
proceedings  was  the  declination  of  so  many  delegates  to  join  in  them, 
through  disgust  at  the  Platform  and  their  treatment  by  the  majority. 
The  New  York  and  New  Jersey  delegates  remained  passive  in  their 
seats,  and  Connecticut,  Wisconsin,  Delaware,  Michigan,  and  Rhode 
Island  cast  only  partial  or  scattering  votes. 

The  vote  on  the  first  ballot  was:  Richard  P.  Bland,  of  Missouri, 
235;  William  J.  Bryan,  of  Nebraska,  119;  Robert  E.  Pattison,  of 
Pennsylvania,  95;  Horace  Boies,  of  Iowa,  85;  J.  S.  C.  Blackburn,  of 
Kentucky,  83;  John  R.  McLean,  of  Ohio,  54;  Claude  Matthews,  of 
Indiana,  37;  Benjamin  R.  Tillman,  of  South  Carolina,  IT;  Sylvester 
Pennoyer,  of  Oregon,  8;  Henry  M.  Teller,  of  Colorado,  8;  Adlai  E. 
Stevenson,  of  Illinois,  7;  William  E.  Russell,  of  Massachusetts,  2; 
David  B.  Hill,  of  New  York,  1;  not  voting,  178.  On  the  last  ballot 
the  vote  was:  Bryan,  500;  Bland,  106;  Pattison,  95;  Matthews,  31; 
Boies,  26;  Stevenson,  8;  not  voting,  162.  Changes  were  made,  howr- 
ever,  giving  Bryan  more  than  the  512  necessary  to  a  choice. 

There  were  five  ballots  for  a  candidate  for  Vice-President,  Arthur 
Sewall,  of  Maine,  being  nominated  on  the  fifth  ballot. 

The  other  tickets  nominated  for  the  campaign  were:  The  People's 
Party,  WTilliam  J.  Bryan  for  President,  and  Thomas  E.  Watson,  of 
Georgia,  for  Vice-President;  the  National  Democratic  party,  John 
M.  Palmer,  of  Illinois,  for  President,  and  Simon  B.  Buckner,  of  Ken- 
tucky, for  Vice-President;  the  Socialist  Labor  party,  Charles  H. 
Matchett,  of  New  York,  for  President,  and  Matthew  Maguire,  of  New 
Jersey,  for  Vice-President;  the  Prohibition  party,  Joshua  Levering, 


536  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

of  Maryland,  for  President,  and  Hale  Johnson,  of  Illinois,  for  Vice- 
President.  The  seceding  Prohibitionists  nominated  Charles  E.  Bent- 
ley,  of  Nebraska,  for  President,  and  James  H.  Southgate,  of  North 
Carolina,  for  Vice-President. 

The  campaign  was  one  of  great  vigor,  but  remarkably  free  from 
personalities  and  vituperation.  Mr.  McKinley  was  at  his  Canton 
home  when  he  was  nominated,  and  he  remained  there  throughout  the 
canvass.  He  lived  in  a  house  as  modest  as  that  which  Abraham  Lin- 
coln occupied  in  1800,  but  the  life  of  the  Kepublican  candidate  for  a 
time  after  his  nomination  was  a  succession  of  congratulatory  epi- 
sodes— telegrams,  letters,  visits,  speeches,  and  processions.  The 
visitors  came  singly  and  in  delegations,  the  most  important  of  these 
being  the  members  of  the  St.  Louis  Convention,  charged  writh  the 
duty  of  his  formal  notification.  This  Committee,  composed  of  rep- 
resentatives from  each  State  and  Territory,  reached  Canton  on  June 
29.  There  was  nothing  stilted  in  Mr.  McKinley's  reception  of  the 
messengers  of  the  Convention,  for  he  gave  to  the  occasion  the  grace  of 
a  new  departure,  by  turning  it  to  the  account  of  his  party  and  the 
country.  In  his  own  eloquent,  logical,  and  convincing  way,  he  let  it 
be  known  exactly  how  he  stood  toward  the  party  and  its  platform  of 
principles,  how  the  party  was  expected  to  stand  toward  the  country, 
and  what  were  the  solemn  duties  of  an  hour  in  which  redemption 
from  existing  ills  was  expected.  "  The  American  people,"  he  said, 
u  hold  the  financial  honor  of  our  Government  as  sacred  as  our  flag, 
and  can  be  relied  upon  to  guard  it  with  the  same  sleepless  vigilance. 
They  hold  its  preservation  above  party  fealty,  and  have  often  demon- 
strated that  party  ties  avail  nothing  when  the  spotless  credit  of  our 
country  is  threatened.  The  money  of  the  United  States,  and  every 
kind  or  form  of  it,  whether  of  paper,  silver,  or  gold,  must  be  as  good 
as  the  best  in  the  world.  It  must  not  only  be  current  at  its  full  face 
value  at  home,  but  it  must  be  counted  at  par  in  any  and  every  com- 
mercial center  of  the  globe.  The  sagacious  and  far-seeing  policy  of 
the  great  men  who  founded  our  Government,  the  teachings  and  acts 
of  the  wisest  financiers  at  every  stage  in  our  history,  the  steadfast 
faith  and  splendid  achievements  of  the  great  party  to  which  we  be- 
long, and  the  genius  and  integrity  of  our  people,  have  always  de- 
manded this,  and  will  ever  maintain  it.  The  dollar  paid  to  the 
farmer,  the  wage-earner,  and  the  pensioner  must  continue  forever 
equal  in  purchasing  and  debt-paying  power  to  the  dollar  paid  to  any 
Government  creditor.  The  contest  this  year  will  not  be  waged  upon 
lines  of  theory  and  speculation,  but  in  the  light  of  severe  practical 
experience  and  new  and  dearly  acquired  knowledge.  The  great  body 
of  our  citizens  know  what  they  want,  and  that  they  intend  to  have. 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1896.  537 

They  know  for  what  the  Republican  party  stands,  and  what  its  re- 
turn to  power  means  to  them.  They  realize  that  the  Republican  party 
believes  that  our  work  should  be  done  at  home  and  not  abroad,  and 
everywhere  proclaim  their  devotion  to  the  principles  of  a  protective 
tariff  which,  while  supplying  adequate  revenues  for  the  Government, 
will  restore  American  production  and  serve  the  best  interests  of 
American  labor  and  development.  Our  appeal,  therefore,  is  not  to  a 
false  philosophy  or  vain  theorists,  but  to  the  masses  of  the  American 
people,  the  plain,  practical  people  whom  Lincoln  loved  and  trusted, 
and  whom  the  Republican  party  has  always  striven  to  serve." 

Without  stirring  from  his  home,  Mr.  McKinley  made  his  words  and 
his  influence  felt  in  the  remotest  corners  of  the  land.  Bryan  pursued 
the  opposite  policy  from  that  adopted  by  McKinley.  He  was  much 
in  evidence  from  the  beginning  to  the  close  of  the  campaign.  He 
went  everywhere  and  talked  incessantly.  "  There  shall  be  no  signs 
of  '  Keep  off  the  grass  '  when  you  come  around,  boys,"  he  said,  to  the 
crowds  in  Chicago  on  the  evening  of  his  nomination.  After  leaving 
Chicago  on  his  way  to  his  home  at  Lincoln,  he  visited  Salem,  his 

™  t/ 

birthplace,  and  afterward  made  journeys  in  every  direction,  making- 
speeches  wherever  there  was  a  crowd  to  meet  him.  This  was  the  fea- 
ture of  the  canvass  for  free  silver,  and  the  free  silver  candidate  was 
received  with  so  much  apparent  enthusiasm  that  he  was  certain  of  his 
election.  The  man  in  the  little  home  at  Canton  made  no  journeys, 
but,  like  Lincoln  thirty-six  years  before,  waited  quietly  for  the  people 
to  show  that  they  knew  what  they  wanted,  and  whom  they  would 
have  to  serve  them  as  President  of  the  United  States. 

The  two  candidates  were  as  opposite  in  their  characters  as  in  their 
methods.  In  temperament  Mr.  McKinley  was  calm,  self-contained, 
equable.  As  a  young  man  he  had  served  with  his  regiment  in  the 
Civil  War.  In  Congress  he  earned  distinction  as  a  Republican  leader 
and  the  champion  of  Republican  principles.  As  Governor  of  Ohio 
he  had  shown  executive  ability  of  a  high  order.  His  public  life  had 
begun  when  Bryan  was  a  schoolboy,  and  his  public  services  com- 
manded the  admiration  of  his  party  and  the  country.  Mr.  Bryan,  on 
the  contrary,  was  a.  very  young  man,  with  little  experience,  and  in- 
clined to  political  vagaries.  He  was  known  to  the  people  only 
through  a  few  speeches,  and  his  speeches  were  like  a  rushing  moun- 
tain stream,  sparkling,  but  shallow.  Between  the  two  men  it  was 
impossible  that  the  sober  thought  of  the  country  should  be  in  doubt. 

While  McKinley  escaped  much  of  the  usual  vituperation  and  mis- 
representation of  "a  Presidential  candidate,  Mark  Hanna,  the  Chair- 
man of  the  Republican  National  Committee,  was  not  so  fortunate. 
Suddenly  he  became  the  most  talked-of  man  in  America.  His  por- 


538 


HISTORY   OF  THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 


trait,  in  varying  shades  of  perfection,  was  in  every  newspaper.  Even 
Bryan  was  not  more  a  subject  of  popular  interest.  If  virulence  di- 
rected against  Mark  Hanna  had  counted  for  much  McKinley  would 
have  been  beaten,  but  the  same  influences  that  operated  in  the  Re- 
publican National  Convention  in  June  were  operative  throughout 
the  campaign  and  determined  the  result  in  November. 

The  defection  of  the  sound  money  Democrats  was  not  considered  a 
serious  menace  by  the  men  who  nominated  Bryan  and  Sewall.       It 
was  believed  that  the  vote  diverted  to  the  support  of  Palmer  and 
Buckner  would  be  more  than  made  up  by  that  which  the  silver  Re- 
publicans  would  give  to  Bryan.     There  were  grounds  for  this  as- 
sumption.    All  over  the  country  there  were  Republicans  who  ad- 
vocated   free   coinage   during    the 
campaign,  but  most  of  them  voted 
for    McKinley    and    Hobart  in  the 
end,  while  the  sound  money  Demo- 
crats were  forced  by  the  fusion  of 
the     Bryan    Democracy    with   the 
Populists  to  adopt  the  same  course. 
So-called      Fusion     tickets     were 
adopted  in   twenty-six  States.     In 
Kansas  Democratic   electors   were 
indorsed  by  the  Populists  in  return 
for  State  officers,  and  in  North  Da- 
kota Populist  electors  were  given 
a  Democratic  indorsement  on  sim- 
ilar terms.     In  Oregon  there  was 
only  one  Democratic  elector  to  two 
Populists  and    one    silver  Repub- 
lican.     In     previous     Presidential 

campaigns  when  there  were  Fusion  tickets  it  meant  that  either  of 
two  candidates  might  benefit  from  the  arrangement,  but  Fusion  in 
1896  was  only  united  support  of  Bryan  by  Democrats  and  Populists 
alike.  It  was  a  division  of  electors  between  parties,  but  under  no 
circumstances  between  candidates.  In  the  States  in  which  the  ma- 
jorities either  way  were  likely  to  be  overwhelming,  there  were  no 
Fusion  tickets— Alabama,  Florida,  Georgia,  Mississippi,  South  Caro- 
lina, Tennessee,  Texas,  and  Virginia;  Maine,  New  Hampshire,  Rhode 
Island,  and  Vermont.  Altogether  eighty  Populists  were  named  as 
candidates  for  electors,  but  no  significance  is  to  be  attached  to  this 
wide  recognition  of  Populism,  as  it  was  only  a  device  to  catch  votes 
for  Bryan. 

The  popular  vote  for  President  was  13,923,643,  of  which  7,106,199 


MARK    HANNA. 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1896.  539 

votes  were  cast  for  McKinley,  6,502,685  for  Bryan,  132,871  for  Pal- 
mer, 131,757  for  Levering,  36,258  for  Matchett,  and  13,873  for  Bent- 
ley.  McKinley's  majority  was  288,753,  and  his  plurality  over  Bryan 
603,514.  Bryan's  pluralities  were  confined  to  the  Southern  and  min- 
ing States.  McKinley  carried  the  agricultural  and  manufacturing 
States  by  overwhelming  majorities.  The  States  that  voted  for 
Cleveland  in  1892,  but  voted  for  McKinley  in  1896,  were  Connecticut, 
Delaware,  Illinois,  Indiana,  Kentucky,  Maryland,  New  Jersey,  New 
York,  and  Wisconsin.  California  had  voted  8  for  Cleveland  to  1 
for  Harrison,  but  now  voted  1  for  Bryan  to  8  for  McKinley.  Michi- 
gan, which  had  given  Cleveland  5  electoral  votes,  now  gave  McKinley 
its  full  electoral  vote.  North  Dakota  gave  its  3  votes  to  McKinley 
instead  of  dividing  them  impartially  as  in  1892.  The  reaction  that 
was  the  result  of  the  McKinley  bill  was  now  reversed  by  the  reaction 
that  was  the  result  of  the  Wilson  bill.  The  silver  question  was  not 
seriously  felt  in  the  campaign,  and  in  the  elections  gave  Bryan  only 
four  States  that  had  voted  for  Harrison  in  1892 — Montana,  Nebraska, 
South  Dakota,  and  Wyoming. 

The  election  of  William  McKinley  was  justly  hailed  as  the  promise 
of  a  new  Period  of  Prosperity. 


V. 

OPENING  OF  A  NEW  EPOCH. 

The  Fifty-Fifth  Congress — Quick  Passage  of  the  Dingley  Tariff  Act- 
Changes  in  Duties — Legislation  in  the  Extraordinary  Session  of 
Congress — Annexation  of  Hawaii — The  Cuban  Question — In- 
surrections in  Cuba — devolution  of  1895-98 — American  Sym- 
pathy with  the  Cubans — The  Case  of  the  Competitor — President 
Cleveland's  Attitude — The  Question  of  Belligerency — Resolu- 
tions in  the  Fifty-fourth  and  Fifty-fifth  Congresses — President 
McKinley's  Course — Destruction  of  the  "  Maine  "•  —War  with 
Spain — Beginning  of  a  New  Epoch. 


ITH  the  election  of  William  McKinley  a  Republican  House 
of  Representatives  was  also  chosen,  and  the  Republicans 
obtained  a  plurality  in  the  Senate  that  was  virtually  a 
majority  on  all  questions  except  the  free  coinage  of  silver. 
The  new  Republican  Senators  in  the  55th  Congress  are  Henry  Hert- 
feld,  of  Idaho;  William  E.  Mason,  of  Illinois;  Charles  W.  Fairbanks, 
of  Indiana;  William  J.  Deboe,  of  Kentucky;  George  L.  Wellington, 
of  Maryland;  Thomas  C.  Platt,  of  New  York;  Joseph  B.  Foraker  and 
Marcus  A.  Hanna,  of  Ohio,  and  Boies  Penrose,  of  Pennsylvania.  Not 
so  many  States  have  unbroken  Republican  delegations  as  in  the  54th 
Congress,  but  four  States  re-elected  their  delegations  complete — Con- 
necticut, Iowa,  Maine,  and  New  Jersey;  and  four  other  States  had  full 
Republican  delegations — Maryland,  Minnesota,  Wrest  Virginia,  and 
Wisconsin.  The  Representatives  from  Maryland  were  all  new  mem- 
bers except  William  B.  Baker,  of  the  Second  District,  but  West  Vir- 
ginia and  Wisconsin  returned  all  the  members  of  the  previous  House 
except  one  each,  and  Minnesota  replaced  only  two  of  its  Representa- 
tives. The  Democrats  made  no  serious  inroads  in  the  delegations  of 
any  of  the  great  Republican  States — Illinois,  Indiana,  Massachusetts. 
New  York,  Ohio,  and  Pennsylvania.  The  Congress  was  called  to 
meet  in  special  session  March  15,  1897,  and  Thomas  B.  Reed,  of  Maine, 
was  chosen  Speaker  for  the  third  time. 

The  extraordinary  session  of  the  55th  Congress  was  called  specially 
to  deal  with  the  Tariff;  in  the  words  of  President  McKinley's  mes- 
sage, "  To  supply  ample  revenue  for  the  support  of  the  Government 
and  the  liquidation  of  the  public  debt."  In  view  of  the  emergency 
the  Committee  on  Ways  and  Means  in  the  54th  Congress  had  pre- 


OPENING  OF  A  NEW  EPOCH.  541 

pared  the  necessary  tariff  schedules  during  the  previous  session,  and, 
three  days  after  the  beginning  of  the  special  session,  was  able  to  re- 
port the  measure  that  became  known  as  the  Dingley  Tariff  bill.  It 
required  only  thirteen  days  for  its  consideration  and  passage  by  the 
House.  The  Republican  members  of  the  Finance  Committee  of  the 
Senate  spent  a  month  considering  and  amending  the  House  bill.  It 
was  reported  to  the  Senate  on  May  7,  and  passed  on  July  7,  with  872 
amendments.  In  conference  there  was  a  ten  days'  struggle  between 
the  friends  and  opponents  of  the  bill,  but  on  July  17  an  agreement  was 
reached  by  which  the  Senate  receded  from  118  amendments,  and  the 
House  accepted  511.  The  rest,  243,  were  compromised.  After  de- 
bate, the  House  adopted  it,  July  19,  after  which  the  Senate  took  it 
up  (July  20),  and  passed  it  on  the  24th.  It  was  promptly  signed  by 
the  President,  and  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  ruled  that  it  was  op- 
erative from  and  after  midnight  of  that  day. 

The  following  is  an  exhibit  of  the  increased  tariff  rates  on  many 
staple  articles  of  food,  clothing,  hardware,  etc.,  under  the  opera- 
tion of  the  Dingley  law:  The  duty  on  jellies  raised  5  cents;  on  oranges 
and  lemons,  more  than  doubled;  nuts  increased  1  cent  a  pound;  meats 
raised  5  per  cent.;  chicory,  which  was  free  under  the  Wilson  bill, 
made  1  cent  a  pound;  chocolate  raised  half  a  cent;  salt,  which  was 
free,  12  cents  per  100  pounds;  sugar  raised  1  cent  a  pound;  preserved 
vegetables  raised  10  per  cent.;  eggs  increased  2  cents  a  dozen;  cider, 
advanced  5  cents  a  gallon;  green  peas,  which  were  free,  raised  40 
cents  a  bushel ;  potatoes,  raised  10  cents  a  bushel ;  onions  and  honey 
doubled;  vegetables  in  general,  increased  20  cents  a  bushel;  fresh- 
water fish  and  mackerel  and  halibut,  raised  a  quarter  of  a  cent  a 
pound;  hay,  doubled;  plushes  and  velvets,  changed  from  40  per  cent, 
to  9  cents  a  yard,  and  25  per  cent.;  ready-made  clothing  and  cotton 
generally,  increased  10  per  cent.;  hosiery  raised  15  per  cent.;  floor 
matting,  which  was  free,  taxed  from  3  to  8  cents;  collars  and  cuffs, 
increased  15  per  cent.;  lace  goods,  raised  10  per  cent.;  dress  goods, 
raised  20  per  cent.;  carpets  increased  from  18  to  60  cents  a  yard; 
silks  raised  15  per  cent.;  beads,  trimmings,  hats,  etc.,  increased  from 
15  to  20  per  cent. ;  flowers,  which  were  free,  25  per  cent. ;  boots,  shoes, 
and  umbrellas,  raised  5  per  cent. ;  hair  and  hat  pins  increased  10  per 
cent.;  spectacles  and  eyeglasses,  increased  10  per  cent.;  cutlery  and 
scissors,  raised  20  per  cent.;  and  pens  changed  from  8  to  10  cents 
per  gross.     There  was  some  further  tariff  legislation  during  the  regu- 
lar session,  which  began  in  December,  in  view  of  the  necessity  of  in- 
creased revenue  because  of  the  war  with  Spain,  together  with  the  im- 
position of  stamp  and  other  special  taxes  to  meet  the  extraordinary 
expenditures  of  the  war.     These  measures,  being  temporary  in  their 


542  HISTORY   OF   THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

nature  and  of  immediate  interest  only,  require  no  detailed  statement 
in  this  place. 

Although  legislation  at  the  special  session  was  subordinated  to  the 
passage  of  the  Tariff  bill,  the  four  Appropriation  bills  that  had 
failed  in  the  54th  Congress  were  passed,  after  being  amended  in 
some  important  particulars.  The  General  Deficiency  bill  carried  a 
provision  accepting  the  invitation  to  take  part  in  the  Paris  Exposition 
of  1900,  and  appropriating  $25,000  to  meet  preliminary  expenses; 
also  $150,000  was  appropriated  to  build  a  new  immigrant  station  at 
New  York.  A  very  important  feature  of  the  bill  was  the  limiting  of 
the  cost  of  armor-plate  for  the  three  new  battleships  to  $300  per  ton. 
It  was  provided  that  in  case  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  should  find 
it  impossible  to  make  contracts  at  $300  he  should  take  steps  to  estab- 
lish a  Government  armor-plate  factory,  in  accordance  with  rules  laid 
down  for  his  government.  In  the  Sundry  Civil  bill  was  a  new  provi- 
sion suspending  the  order  of  President  Cleveland,  and  setting  aside 
about  121,000,000  acres  as  forest  reservation,  with  a  general  scheme 
of  legislation  for  the  government  and  protection  of  the  forest  reser- 
vations of  the  country.  Among  the  appropriation  bills  formulated 
wholly  by  this  new  Congress  and  passed,  were:  one  appropriating 
$50,000  for  the  relief  of  American  citizens  in  Cuba;  one  appropriating 
$200,000  for  the  relief  of  flood  sufferers  along  the  Mississippi  and  its 
tributaries,  and  one  appropriating  $5,000  for  the  entertainment  and 
expenses  of  delegates  to  the  Universal  Postal  Congress,  which  met  in 
Washington  City. 

Soon  after  taking  office  President  McKinley  negotiated  a  new 
treaty  for  the  annexation  of  Hawaii.  It  was  sent  to  the  Senate  but 
not  acted  upon  during  the  special  session.  It  became  clear,  however, 
that  the  two-thirds  vote  necessary  to  the  ratification  of  a  treaty 
could  not  be  obtained,  and  it  was  determined  to  effect  annexation  by 
a  joint  resolution  to  be  passed  by  the  two  Houses  of  Congress.  Even 
this  course  made  slow  progress,  and  the  first  session  of  the  55th 
Congress  had  nearly  expired  before  final  action.  The  Sandwich 
Islands,  known  by  the  general  name  of  Hawaii,  are  a  group  of  twelve, 
situated  in  the  Pacific  ocean,  3,500  miles  west  of  Mexico  and  about 
2,700  miles  southwest  of  San  Francisco.  Four  of  them — Karcla, 
Lehrca,  Moloniki,  and  Nihoa — are  uninhabitable;  but  eight  have 
large  areas  of  arable  and  pasture  lands,  and  were  inhabited  long 
before  European  navigators  first  set  foot  upon  any  of  them  (1527). 
The  eight  productive  islands  have  a  total  area  of  about  7,000  square 
miles,  or  nearly  as  much  as  the  State  of  New  Jersey,  with  its  popula- 
tion of  a  million  and  a  half;  four  times  as  much  as  Rhode  Island,  and 
as  much  as  Connecticut  and  Delaware  combined.  These  habitable 


OPENING  OF  A  NEW  EPOCH.  54.3 

islands  are  Hawaii,  area  (approximate),  4,000  square  miles;  Kahoola- 
wee,  05;  Kanai,  640;  Lanai,  100;  Maui,  800;  Molokai,  200;  Nuhau,  95, 
and  Calm,  500.  In  accordance  with  the  policy  of  expansion,  which 
the  Republican  party  adopted  during  the  administration  of  Presi- 
dent Harrison,  and  to  which  it  has  steadily  adhered,  the  United 
States  have  taken  formal  possession  of  these  islands,  but  the  method 
of  their  government  remains  to  be  determined  by  Congress. 

While  the  Hawaiian  question  was  pending  in  Congress  one  of 
greater  importance,  and  fraught  with  more  important  responsibili- 
ties, forced  itself  upon  the  United  States.  This  was  the  disturbed 
condition  of  Cuba.  The  Cuban  question  was  not  a  new  one,  and  it 
had  always  been  the  opinion  of  American  statesmen  that  a  protracted 
war  in  Cuba,  in  the  language  of  Henry  Clay,  "  might  bring  upon  the 
government  of  the  United  States  duties  and  obligations,  the  per- 
formance of  which,  however  painful  it  should  be,  they  might  not  be  at 
liberty  to  decline."  Many  times  in  the  last  three-quarters  of  a  century 
have  the  Cubans  attempted  to  throw  off  the  Spanish  yoke.  The  first 
time  was  in  1826,  when  the  insurrection  was  speedily  suppressed  and 
the  twTo  leaders  executed.  This  was  followed  by  the  "  Conspiracy  of 
the  Bald  Eagles,"  also  quickly  suppressed  and  the  participants  exe- 
cuted or  banished.  In  1855  came  the  expeditions  under  Quitman  and 
others,  resulting  in  another  failure  and  more  executions,  but  the  ten 
years'  war  under  Cespedes,  1868-78,  wras  more  formidable,  and 
was  only  brought  to  a  close  by  promises  of  reform  that  were  immedi- 
ately broken  by  cruel  and  perfidious  Spain.  During  this  ten  years' 
struggle  the  United  States  had  threatened  intervention,  and  it  wras 
inevitable  that  if  another  attempt  at  Revolution  was  made  in  Cuba  it 
must  result  in  this  threat  being  renewed  and  carried  into  effect.  The 
attempt  came  in  1895,  when  General  Gomez  landed  with  500  men  near 
Santiago  de  Cuba,  and  soon  raised  an  army  that  marched  across  the 
most  fruitful  provinces  of  the  island  from  east  to  west,  even  encir- 
cling and  threatening  Havana  itself.  Inland  communications  were 
often  cut,  and  the  sugar  and  tobacco  plantations  devastated.  Spain 
augmented  her  armies  in  Cuba  till  a  force  of  over  100,000  men  was  on 
the  scene,  yet  the  operations  of  the  insurgents  received  no  serious 
check.  They  passed  and  repassed  the  celebrated  Trocha,  or  armed 
trench  across  the  island,  with  ease  and  without  loss,  always,  of 
course,  avoiding  decisive  battles.  In  strategy  they  were  more  than 
a  match  for  the  Spaniards,  and  in  their  tactical  delays,  forays,  and  sur- 
prises they  proved  more  formidable  than  if  they  had  sought  successes 
through  direct  blows.  Here  was  a  condition  that  claimed  recognition, 
but  whether  it  should  take  the  form  of  according  the  rights  of  bellig- 
erents to  the  Cubans,  or  that  of  an  ultimatum  to  Spain  were  ques- 


544  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

tions  that  delayed  action  from  the  last  year  of  President  Cleveland's 
administration  until  the  expiration  of  more  than  a  year  from  the 
beginning  of  the  administration  of  President  McKinley. 

u  Such  a  war  as  is  now  being  waged  in  Cuba,"  Senator  Lodge  wrote 
in  the  Forum  in  1890,  "  unrestrained  by  any  of  the  laws  of  civilized 
warfare,  and  marked  by  massacre  and  ferocious  reprisals  at  every 
step,  is  a  disgrace  to  civilization.  It  is  as  useless  as  it  is  brutal.  Spain 
is  in  truth  '  an  anachronism  '  in  the  Western  Hemisphere.  It  is 
impossible  that  she  should  long  retain  even  the  last  foothold.  Span- 
ish-American Governments  have  no  doubt  fallen  far  short  of  the 
standards  of  the  English-speaking  race,  but  they  have  been  an  im- 
mense improvement  on  the  stupid  and  cruel  misgovernment  of  Spain. 
It  is  no  argument  to  say  that,  because  the  Spanish-American  Govern- 
ments are  not  up  to  our  standard,  the  Cubans  should  be  compelled  to 
remain  crushed  beneath  the  misgovernment  of  Spain, — especially 
when  Ave  remember  that,  although  there  are  many  negroes  and  mulat- 
toes  in  Cuba,  the  whites  are  Avhites  of  pure  race  and  not  mixed  with 
Indian  blood  as  on  the  continent.  This  is  a  world  of  comparative 
progress,  and  freedom  from  Spain  would  be  to  Cuba  a  long  step  in 
advance  on  the  high  road  of  advancing  civilization.  The  interests  of 
humanity  are  the  controlling  reasons  which  demand  the  beneficent 
interposition  of  the  United  States  to  bring  to  an  end  this  savage  Avar 
and  give  to  the  island  peace  and  independence.  No  great  nation  can 
escape  its  responsibilities.  We  freely  charge  England  with  respon- 
sibility for  the  hideous  atrocities  in  Armenia.  But  it  is  the  merest 
cant  to  do  this  if  we  shirk  our  OAvn  duty.  We  have  a  responsibility 
with  regard  to  Cuba.  We  can  not  evade  it,  and,  if  Ave  seek  to  do  so, 
sooner  or  later  Ave  shall  pay  the  penalty.  But  the  American  people, 
Avhose  sympathies  are  strongly  Avith  the  Cubans  fighting  for  their 
liberties,  Avill  no  longer  suffer  this  indifference  toward  them  to  con- 
tinue. If  one  administration  declines  to  meet  our  national  responsi- 
bilities as  they  should  be  met,  there  Avill  be  put  in  poAver  another 
administration  which  Avill  neither  neglect  nor  shun  its  plain  duty  to 
the  United  States  and  to  the  cause  of  freedom  and  humanity." 

The  progress  of  the  revolution  so  impressed  the  American  people 
that  the  54th  Congress  adopted  a  resolution  expressing  detestation  of 
Spanish  methods  in  Cuba,  and  by  implication  conAreying  a  hope  of  the 
success  of  the  Cuban  struggle  for  independence.  There  was  a  disposi- 
tion to  make  this  resolution  a  joint  one,  and  to  grant  belligerent 
rights  to  the  struggling  Cubans,  but  the  indifferent  if  not  hostile  atti- 
tude of  the  President  stood  in  the  wTay.  Indeed  there  Avere  grounds 
for  regarding  Mr.  Cleveland's  course  as  not  merely  one  of  indiffer- 
ence toAvard  the  contestants,  but  as  favoritism  toAvard  Spain.  It  Avas 


OPENING  OF  A  NEW  EPOCH.  545 

charged  that  he  went  beyond  his  duty  of  preserving  neutrality.    He 
undertook  to  police  the  seas  beyond  the  three-mile  limit  and  to  arrest 
vessels  carrying  munitions  of  war  for  violating  neutrality.     In  only 
one  case  was  his  course  sustained  by  the  courts, — a  case  where  the 
arms  and  the  soldiers  were  actually  found  aboard  together.    While 
these  annoying  conditions  were  vexing  the  American  people  the 
action  of  the  Spanish  authorities  in  Cuba  served  to  kindle  a  feeling 
of  indignation  in  the  United  States  that  was  not  easily  restrained.    A 
vessel  called  the  "  Competitor  "  was  seized  while  engaged  in  trying 
to  land  war  munitions  for  the  insurgents.    Her  crew  was  summarily 
tried  by  court-martial  and  sentenced  to  death.    The  trial  was  a  sheer 
mockery,  the  accused  being  denied  time  for  preparation  and  counsel 
of  their  own  choosing.    This  action  was  so  hasty  and  in  such  accord 
with  the  charges  of  cruelty  to  which  the  Spaniards  had  already 
thrown  themselves  open,  that  word  of  it  incensed  our  people  and 
spurred  the  Government  to  the  point  of  intervention.     Fortunately 
the  finding  of  the  court-martial  had  to  be  certified  to  the  government 
at  Madrid  for  approval  before  it  could  be  executed.    It  was  met  there 
by  an  American  protest  that  served  to  call  Spain  to  her  senses,  and 
to  postpone  the  approval  of  what  would  have  been  murder  upon  false 
charges  of  piracy  and  treason.    None  of  the  elements  of  piracy  were 
found  in  the  case.    The  "  Competitor  "  was  engaged  in  filibustering, 
or  in  a  military  expedition,  which  is  not  piracy.     Piracy  is  a  crime 
committed  on  the  high  seas.    Its  object  is  plunder  by  attack  upon  ves- 
sels that  come  in  its  way.    A  pirate  is  an  enemy  of  the  human  race. 
International  law  so  adjudges  her.    But  not  so  an  insurgent  vessel, 
carrying  arms  to  friends,  with  no  intent  to  depredate  in  the  open 
seas^  and  without  power  to  do  so.    Nor  was  the  crime  treason,  for  that 
is  the  crime  of  a  subject  against  his  sovereign.     The  crew  of  the 
"Competitor"  were  not  Spanish  subjects.     One  was  an  American. 
Pending  the  solution  of  this  case,  a  solution  which  involved  the 
higher  question  of  peace  or  war  between  the  two  anxious  and  excited 
countries,  the  Cuban  problem  worked  its  way  into  the  politics  of  the 
national  campaign  of  1896.    It  brought  the  Congress  to  the  verge  of 
passing  a  joint  resolution  in  favor  of  belligerency.    Many  State  Con- 
ventions of  both  parties  passed  resolutions  of  sympathy  with  the 
struggling  Cubans,  and  as  time  progressed  it  became  almost  certain 
that  neither  the  Kepublican  nor  Democratic  party  could  refuse  to 
insert  a  plank  in  its  national  platform  in  favor  of  Cuban  belligerency. 
This  was  done  by  the  Republicans  in  the  declaration  in  the  St.  Louis 
Platform  that  "  the  Government  of  the  United  States  should  actively 
use  its  influence  and  good  offices  to  restore  peace  and  give  independ- 
ence to  the  island,"  but  the  Chicago  Convention  contented  itself  with 


546  HISTORY   OF  THE   REPUBLICAN    PARTY. 

extending  "  sympathy  to  the  people  of  Cuba  in  their  heroic  struggle 
for  liberty  and  independence."  Thus  the  question  remained  until 
after  the  inauguration  of  President  McKinley. 

During  the  extraordinary  session  of  the  55th  Congress  the  Senate 
passed  the  belligerency  resolution  introduced  into  the  54th  Congress, 
but  the  House  took  no  action  until  the  demand  of  the  President  made 
action  imperative.  President  McKinley  was  not  disposed  to  be  pre- 
cipitate in  dealing  with  Spain,  but  brought  sufficient  pressure  to  bear 
upon  the  Spanish  Government  to  secure  the  recall  of  Captain-General 
Weyler,  whose  name  was  a  synonym  for  cruelty  in  Cuba,  and  a  decree 
of  autonomy  for  the  oppressed  island,  which  came  too  late  and  was 
rejected  by  the  Cubans.  Weyler's  policy  of  concentration  had  caused 
the  death  of  thousands  of  non-combatants  by  exposure  and  starvation 
—a  policy  that  Eamon  Blanco  was  unwilling  or  unable  to  reverse. 
This  involved  Americans  as  well  as  Cubans  in  the  hardships  and 
sufferings  of  a  struggle  that  Spain  had  no  power  to  bring  to  an  end, 
and  rendered  the  American  people  impatient  and  increased  the  ten- 
sion between  the  two  governments.  The  attitude  of  the  Spanish  resi- 
dents of  Havana  becoming  threatening,  the  battleship  "  Maine  "  was 
sent  to  that  port,  January  24,  1898,  and  was  blown  up  in  the  harbor 
there  on  the  15th  of  February.  This  event  caused  great  indignation 
in  the  United  States.  A  Naval  Court  of  Inquiry  was  ordered  which, 
after  a  long  and  careful  investigation,  reported  that  the  battleship 
was  destroyed  by  a  submarine  mine.  The  findings  were  sent  to 
Congress  by  the  President  on  the  28th  of  March.  In  the  meantime  two 
squadrons  were  concentrated  for  a  possible  emergency — one  at  Key 
West  and  one  at  Hampton  Roads.  On  the  llth  of  April  the  President 
sent  a  message  to  Congress,  in  which  he  reviewed  the  history  of  the 
Cuban  struggle,  and  asked  for  authority  "  to  take  measure  to  secure  a 
full  and  final  termination  of  hostilities  between  the  Government  of 
Spain  and  the  people  of  Cuba,  and  to  secure  in  the  island  the  establish- 
ment of  a  stable  government  capable  of  maintaining  order  and 
observing  its  international .  obligations,  insuring  peace  and  tran- 
quillity and  the  security  of  its  citizens,  as  well  as  our  own,  and  to  use 
the  military  and  naval  forces  of  the  United  States  as  may  be  necessary 
for  these  purposes."  The  President  also  asked  for  an  appropriation 
to  feed  the  starving  reconcentrados.  A  joint  resolution  in  favor  of 
Cuban  independence  and  authorizing  intervention,  but  withholding 
recognition  of  the  so-called  Cuban  Republic,  was  passed  by  Congress 
on  the  19th  of  April,  after  a  brief  parliamentary  conflict,  Spain  acted 
onthe  resolutions  by  sending  General  Stewart  L.  Woodford,  the  Ameri- 
can Minister  at  Madrid,  his  passports  on  the  21st.  This  date  was 
accepted  as  the  beginning  of  a  state  of  war  between  the  United 


OPENING  OF  A  NEW  EPOCH.  54T 

States  and  Spain,  the  formal  declaration  being  made  by  Congress  on 
the  25th.  It  is  unnecessary  in  this  place  to  sum  up  the  achievements 
of  the  brief  struggle  that  ensued,  and  it  would  be  futile  to  attempt  to 
forecast  the  future  of  the  Republican  party  in  the  new  era  that  began 
with  the  signing  of  the  Protocol  between  Spain  and  the  United  States, 
August  12,  1898,  after  a  struggle  of  three  months  and  twenty-two 
days. 


DOCUMENTARY  HISTORY  OF  THE  EPOCH. 

REPUBLICAN  PLATFORM  OF  1892. 


HE  representatives  of  the  Republicans  of  the  United  States, 
assembled  in  general  convention  on  the  shores  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi River,  the  everlasting  bond  of  an  indestructible 
Republic,  whose  most  glorious  chapter  of  history  is  the 
record  of  the  Republican  party,  congratulate  their  countrymen  on 
the  majestic  march  of  the  nation  under  the  banners  inscribed  with 
the  principles  of  our  platform  of  1888  vindicated  by  victory  at  the 
polls  and  prosperity  in  our  fields,  workshops,  and  mines,  make  the 
following  declaration  of  principles: 

We  reaffirm  the  American  doctrine  of  protection.  We  call  atten- 
tion to  its  growth  abroad.  We  maintain  that  the  prosperous  condi- 
tion of  our  country  is  largely  due  to  the  wise  revenue  legislation  of 
the  Republican  Congress.  We  believe  that  all  articles  which  can  not 
be  produced  in  the  United  States,  except  luxuries,  should  be  admitted 
free  of  duty,  and  that  on  all  imports  coming  into  competition  writh 
the  products  of  American  labor  there  should  be  levied  duties  equal 
to  the  difference  between  wages  abroad  and  at  home.  We  assert  that 
the  prices  of  manufactured  articles  of  general  consumption  have  been 
reduced  under  the  operations  of  the  Tariff  Act  of  1890.  We  denounce 
the  efforts  of  the  Democratic  majority  of  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives to  destroy  our  tariff  laws  by  piecemeal,  as  manifest  by  their 
attacks  upon  wool,  lead,  and  lead  ores,  the  chief  products  of  a  number 
of  States,  and  we  ask  the  people  for  their  judgment  thereon. 

We  point  to  the  success  of  the  Republican  policy  of  reciprocity, 
under  which  our  export  trade  has  vastly  increased,  and  new  and 
enlarged  markets  have  been  opened  for  the  products  of  our  farms 
and  workshops.  We  remind  the  people  of  the  bitter  opposition  of  the 
Democratic  party  to  this  practical  business  measure,  and  claim  that, 
executed  by  a  Republican  administration,  our  present  laws  will 
eventually  give  us  control  of  the  trade  of  the  world. 

The  American  people,  from  tradition  and  interest,  favor  bimetal- 
lism, and  the  Republican  party  demands  the  use  of  both  gold  and 
silver  as  standard  money,  with  restrictions  and  under  such  provisions, 
to  be  determined  by  legislation,  as  will  secure  the  maintenance  of  the 
parity  of  values  of  the  two  metals,  so  that  the  purchasing  and  debt- 
paying  power  of  the  dollar,  whether  of  silver,  gold,  or  paper,  shall 
be  at  all  times  equal.  The  interests  of  the  producers  of  the  country, 
its  farmers  and  its  workingmen,  demand  that  every  dollar,  paper,  or 


DOCUMENTARY   HISTORY   OF   THE   EPOCH.  549 

coin,  issued  by  the  Government,  shall  be  as  good  as  any  other.  We 
commend  the  wise  and  patriotic  steps  already  taken  by  our  Govern- 
ment to  secure  an  international  conference,  to  adopt  such  measures 
as  will  insure  a  parity  of  value  between  gold  and  silver  for  use  as 
money  throughout  the  world. 

We  demand  that  every  citizen  of  the  United  States  shall  be  allowed 
to  cast  one  free  and  unrestricted  ballot  in  all  public  elections,  and 
that  such  ballot  shall  be  counted  and  returned  as  cast;  that  such  laws 
shall  be  enacted  and  enforced  as  will  secure  to  every  citizen,  be  he 
rich  or  poor,  native  or  foreign-born,  white  or  black,  this  sovereign 
right  guaranteed  by  the  Constitution. 

The  free  and  honest  popular  ballot,  the  just  and  equal  representa- 
tion of  all  the  people,  as  well  as  their  just  and  equal  protection  under 
the  laws,  are  the  foundation  of  our  Republican  institutions,  and  the 
party  will  never  relax  its  efforts  until  the  integrity  of  the  ballot  and 
the  purity  of  elections  shall  be  fully  guaranteed  and  protected  in 
every  State. 

We  denounce  the  continued  inhuman  outrages  perpetrated  upon 
American  citizens  for  political  reasons  in  certain  Southern  States  of 
the  Union. 

We  favor  the  extension  of  our  foreign  commerce,  the  restoration 
of  our  mercantile  marine  by  home-built  ships  and  the  creation  of  a 
navy  for  the  protection  of  our  national  interests  and  the  honor  of  our 
flag;  the  maintenance  of  the  most  friendly  relations  with  all  foreign 
powers;  entangling  alliances  with  none;  and  the  protection  of  the 
rights  of  our  fishermen. 

We  reaffirm  our  approval  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  and  believe  in  the 
achievement  of  the  manifest  destiny  of  the  Republic  in  its  broadest 
sense. 

We  favor  the  re-enactment  of  more  stringent  laws  and  regulations 
for  the  restriction  of  criminal,  pauper,  and  contract  immigration. 

We  favor  efficient  legislation  by  Congress  to  protect  the  life  and 
limbs  of  employees  of  transportation  companies  engaged  in  carrying 
on  interstate  commerce,  and  recommend  legislation  by  the  respective 
States  that  will  protect  employees  engaged  in  State  commerce,  in 
mining  and  manufacturing. 

The  Republican  party  has  always  been  the  champion  of  the  op- 
pressed, and  recognizes  the  dignity  of  manhood,  irrespective  of  faith, 
color,  or  nationality;  it  sympathizes  with  the  cause  of  home  rule  in 
Ireland,  and  protests  against  the  persecution  of  the  Jews  in  Russia. 

The  ultimate  reliance  of  free  popular  government  is  the  intelligence 
of  the  people  and  the  maintenance  of  freedom  among  men.  We, 
therefore,  declare  anew  our  devotion  to  liberty  of  thought  and  con- 


550  HISTORY   OF  THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

science,  of  speech  and  press,  and  approve  all  agencies  and  instrumen- 
talities which  contribute  to  the  education  of  the  children  of  the  land; 
but  while  insisting  upon  the  fullest  measure  of  religious  liberty,  we 
are  opposed  to  any  union  of  church  and  State. 

We  reaffirm  our  opposition,  declared  in  the  Republican  Platform 
of  1888,  to  all  combinations  of  capital  organized  in  trusts  or  otherwise 
to  control  arbitrarily  the  condition  of  trade  among  our  citizens.  We 
heartily  indorse  the  action  already  taken  upon  this  subject,  and  ask 
for  such  further  legislation  as  may  be  required  to  remedy  any  defects 
in  existing  laws,  and  to  render  their  enforcement  more  complete  and 
effective. 

We  approve  the  policy  of  extending  to  towns,  villages,  and  rural 
communities  the  advantages  of  the  free  delivery  service  now  enjoyed 
by  the  larger  cities  of  the  country,  and  reaffirm  the  declaration  con- 
tained in  the  Republican  platform  of  1888,  pledging  the  reduction 
of  letter  postage  to  one  cent  at  the  earliest  possible  moment  consis- 
tent with  the  maintenance  of  the  postoffice  department  and  the 
highest  class  of  postal  service. 

We  commend  the  spirit  and  evidence  of  reform  in  the  civil  service 
and  the  wrise  and  consistent  enforcement  by  the  Republican  party  of 
the  laws  regulating  the  same. 

The  construction  of  the  Nicaragua  Canal  is  of  the  highest  impor- 
tance to  the  American  people,  both  as  a  measure  of  national  defense 
and  to  build  up  and  maintain  American  commerce,  and  it  should  be 
controlled  by  the  United  States  Government. 

We  favor  the  admission  of  the  remaining  Territories  at  the  earliest 
possible  date,  having  due  regard  to  the  interests  of  the  people  of  the 
Territories  and  of  the  United  States.  All  the  Federal  officers  appointed 
for  the  Territories  should  be  selected  from  bona  fide  residents  thereof, 
and  the  right  of  self-government  should  be  accorded  as  far  as  prac- 
ticable. 

We  favor  the  cession,  subject  to  the  homestead  laws,  of  the  arid 
public  lands,  to  the  States  and  Territories  in  which  they  lie,  under 
such  congressional  restrictions  as  to  disposition,  reclamation,  and 
occupancy  by  settlers  as  will  secure  the  maximum  benefits  to 
the  people. 

The  World's  Columbian  Exposition  is  a  great  national  undertaking, 
and  Congress  should  promptly  enact  such  reasonable  legislation  in 
aid  thereof  as  will  insure  a  discharge  of  the  expenses  and  obliga- 
tions incident  thereto,  and  the  attainment  of  results  commensurate 
with  the  dignity  and  progress  of  the  nation. 

We  sympathize  with  all  wise  and  legitimate  efforts  to  lessen  and 
prevent  the  evils  of  intemperance  and  promote  morality. 

Ever  mindful  of  the  service  and  sacrifices  of  the  men  who  saved 


DOCUMENTARY   HISTORY   OF  THE   EPOCH.  551 

the  life  of  the  nation,  we  pledge  anew  to  the  veteran  soldiers  of  the 
Republic  a  watchful  care  and  recognition  of  their  just  claims  upon  a 
grateful  people. 

We  commend  the  able,  patriotic,  and  thoroughly  American  admin- 
istration of  President  Harrison.  Under  it  the  country  has  enjoyed 
remarkable  prosperity,  and  the  dignity  and  honor  of  the  nation,  at 
home  and  abroad,  have  been  faithfully  maintained,  and  we  offer  the 
record  of  pledges  kept,  as  a  guaranty  of  faithful  performance  in  the 
future. 

DEMOCRATIC   PLATFORM   OP   1892. 

The  representatives  of  the  Democratic  party  of  the  United  States 
in  national  convention  assembled,  do  reaffirm  their  allegiance  to  the 
principles  of  the  party,  as  formulated  by  Jefferson,  and  exemplified 
by  the  long  and  illustrious  line  of  his  successors  in  Democratic  lead- 
ership, from  Madison  to  Cleveland;  we  believe  the  public  welfare 
demands  that  these  principles  be  applied  to  the  conduct  of  the  Fed- 
eral Government,  through  the  accession  to  power  of  the  party  that 
advocates  them ;  and  we  solemnly  declare  that  the  need  of  a  return  to 
these  fundamental  principles  of  a  free,  popular  government,  based 
on  home  rule  and  individual  liberty,  wras  never  more  urgent  than  now. 
when  the  tendency  to  centralize  all  power  at  the  Federal  capital  has 
become  a  menace  to  the  reserved  rights  of  the  States,  that  strikes  at 
the  very  roots  of  our  Government  under  the  Constitution,  as  framed 
by  the  fathers  of  the  Republic. 

We  wrarn  the  people  of  our  common  country,  jealous  for  the  preser- 
vation of  their  free  institutions,  that  the  policy  of  Federal  control  of 
elections,  to  wThich  the  Republican  party  has  committed  itself,  is 
fraught  with  the  gravest  dangers,  scarcely  less  momentous  than 
would  result  from  a  revolution  practically  establishing  a  monarchy 
on  the  ruins  of  the  Republic.  It  strikes  at  the  North  as  well  as  the 
South  and  injures  the  colored  citizen  even  more  than  the  white;  it 
means  a  horde  of  deputy  marshals  at  every  polling  place,  armed  with 
Federal  power,  returning  boards  appointed  and  controlled  by  Federal 
authority;  the  outrage  of  the  electoral  rights  of  the  people  in  the 
several  States;  the  subjugation  of  the  colored  people  to  the  control  of 
the  party  in  power  and  the  revival  of  race  antagonisms  now  happily 
abated,  of  the  utmost  peril  to  the  safety  and  happiness  of  all — a  meas- 
ure deliberately  and  justly  described  by  a  leading  Republican  Sena- 
tor as  "  the  most  infamous  bill  that  ever  crossed  the  threshold  of 
the  Senate."  Such  a  policy,  if  sanctioned  by  law,  would  mean  the 
dominance  of  a  self-perpetuating  oligarchy  of  office-holders,  and  the 
party  first  intrusted  with  its  machinery  could  be  dislodged  from 


552  HISTORY   OF  THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

power  only  by  an  appeal  to  the  reserved  right  of  the  people  to  resist 
oppression,  which  is  inherent  in  all  self-governing  communities.  Two 
years  ago  this  revolutionary  policy  was  emphatically  condemned  by 
the  people  at  the  polls;  but,  in  contempt  of  that  verdict,  the  Republi- 
can Party  has  defiantly  declared,  in  its  latest  authoritative  utterance, 
that  its  success  in  the  coming  election  will  mean  the  enactment  of 
the  Force  bill  and  the  usurpation  of  despotic  control  over  the  elections 
in  all  the  States. 

Believing  that  the  preservation  of  Republican  government  in  the 
United  States  is  dependent  upon  the  defeat  of  this  policy  of  legalized 
force  and  fraud,  we  invite  the  support  of  all  citizens  who  desire  to 
see  the  Constitution  maintained  in  its  integrity  with  the  laws  pursu- 
ant thereto  which  have  given  our  country  a  hundred  years  of  unexam- 
pled prosperity;  and  we  pledge  the  Democratic  party,  if  it  be  in- 
trusted with  power,  not  only  to  the  defeat  of  the  Force  bill,  but  also 
to  relentless  opposition  to  the  Republican  policy  of  profligate  expendi- 
ture, which  in  the  short  space  of  two  years  squandered  an  enormous 
surplus  and  emptied  an  overflowing  treasury,  after  piling  new  bur- 
dens of  taxation  upon  the  already  overtaxed  labor  of  the  country. 

We  denounce  Republican  protection  as  a  fraud;  a  robbery  of  the 
great  majority  of  the  American  people  for  the  benefit  of  the  few.  We 
declare  it  to  be  a  fundamental  principle  of  the  Democratic  Tarty  that 
the  Federal  Government  has  no  constitutional  power  to  impose  and 
collect  tariff  duties,  except  for  the  purpose  of  revenue  only,  and  we 
demand  that  the  collection  of  such  taxes  shall  be  limited  to  the  neces- 
sities of  the  Government  when  honestly  and  economically  admin- 
istered. 

We  denounce  the  McKinley  tariff  law  enacted  by  the  51st 
Congress  as  the  culminating  atrocity  of  class  legislation;  we  indorse 
the  efforts  made  by  the  Democrats  of  the  present  Congress  to  modify 
its  most  oppressive  features  in  the  direction  of  free  raw  materials  and 
cheaper  manufactured  goods  that  enter  into  general  consumption; 
and  we  promise  its  repeal  as  one  of  the  beneficent  results  that  will 
follow  the  action  of  the  people  in  intrusting  power  to  the  Democratic 
Party.  Since  the  McKinley  tariff  went  into  operation  there  have  been 
ten  reductions  of  the  wages  of  laboring  men  to  one  increase.  We 
deny  that  there  has  been  any  increase  of  prosperity  to  the  country 
since  that  tariff  went  into  operation,  and  we  point  to  the  dullness  and 
distress,  the  wage  reductions  and  strikes  in  the  iron  trade  as  the  best 
possible  evidence  that  no  such  prosperity  has  resulted  from  the 
McKinley  Act. 

We  call  the  attention  of  thoughtful  Americans  to  the  fact  that 
after  thirty  years  of  restrictive  taxes  agains  the  importation  of  for- 


DOCUMENTARY   HISTORY   OF  THE   EPOCH.  553 

eign  wealth  in  exchange  for  our  agricultural  surplus,  the  homes  and 
farms  of  the  country  have  become  burdened  with  a  real  estate  mort- 
gage debt  of  over  $2,500,000,000,  exclusive  of  all  other  forms  of 
indebtedness;  that  in  one  of  the  chief  agricultural  States  of  the  West 
there  appears  a  real  estate  mortgage  debt  averaging  $165  per  capita 
of  the  total  population;  and  that  similar  conditions  and  tendencies 
are  shown  to  exist  in  other  agricultural  exporting  States.  We 
denounce  a  policy  which  fosters  no  industry  so  much  as  it  does  that  of 
the  sheriff. 

Trade  interchange  on  the  basis  of  reciprocal  advantages  to  the 
countries  participating  is  a  time-honored  doctrine  of  the  Democratic 
faith,  but  we  denounce  the  sham  reciprocity  which  juggles  with  the 
people's  desire  for  enlarged  foreign  markets  and  freer  exchanges  by 
pretending  to  establish  closer  trade  relations  for  a  country  whose 
articles  of  export  are  almost  exclusively  agricultural  products  with 
other  countries  that  are  also  agricultural,  while  erecting  a  custom- 
house barrier  of  prohibitive  tariff  taxes  against  the  richest  countries 
of  the  world  that  stand  ready  to  take  our  entire  surplus  of  products 
and  to  exchange  therefor  commodities  which  are  necessaries  and 
comforts  of  life  among  our  own  people. 

We  recognize  in  the  Trusts  and  Combinations  which  are  designed 
to  enable  capital  to  secure  more  than  its  just  share  of  the  joint  product 
of  capital  and  labor  a  natural  consequence  of  the  prohibitive  taxes 
which  prevent  the  free  competition  which  is  the  life  of  honest  trade, 
but  believe  their  worst  evils  can  be  abated  by  law,  and  we  demand  the 
rigid  enforcement  of  the  lawrs  made  to  prevent  and  control  them, 
together  with  such  further  legislation  in  restraint  of  their  abuses  as 
experience  may  show  to  be  necessary. 

The  Kepublican  party,  while  professing  a  policy  of  reserving  the 
public  land  for  small  holdings  by  actual  settlers,  has  given  away  the 
people's  heritage,  until  now  a  few  railroad  and  non-resident  aliens, 
individual  and  corporate,  possess  a  larger  area  than  that  of  all  pur 
farms  between  the  two  seas.  The  last  Democratic  administration 
reversed  the  improvident  and  unwise  policy  of  the  Kepublican  party 
touching  the  public  domain,  and  reclaimed  from  corporations  and 
syndicates,  alien  and  domestic,  and  restored  to  the  people  nearly  one 
hundred  millions  (100,000,000)  acres  of  valuable  land  to  be  sacredly 
held  as  homesteads  for  our  citizens,  and  we  pledge  ourselves  to  con- 
tinue this  policy  until  every  acre  of  land  so  unlawfully  held  shall  be 
reclaimed  and  restored  to  the  people. 

We  denounce  the  Republican  legislation  known  as  the  Sherman 
Act  of  1890  as  a  cowardly  makeshift,  fraught  with  possibilities  of 
danger  in  the  future,  which  should  make  all  of  its  supporters,  as  well 


554  HISTORY   OF  THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

as  its  author,  anxious  for  its  speedy  repeal.  We  hold  to  the  use  of 
both  gold  and  silver  as  the  standard  money  of  the  country,  and  to  the 
coinage  of  both  gold  and  silver  without  discriminating  against  either 
metal  or  charge  for  mintage,  but  the  dollar  unit  of  coinage  of  both 
metals  must  be  of  equal  intrinsic  and  exchangeable  value,  or  be 
adjusted  through  international  agreement,  or  by  such  safeguards  of 
legislation  as  shall  insure  the  maintenance  of  the  parity  of  the  two 
metals,  and  the  equal  power  of  every  dollar  at  all  times  in  the  mar- 
kets, and  in  payment  of  debt;  and  we  demand  that  all  paper  currency 
shall  be  kept  at  par  with  and  redeemable  in  such  coin.  We  insist 
upon  this  policy  as  especially  necessary  for  the  protection  of  the 
farmers  and  laboring  classes,  the  first  and  most  defenseless  victims 
of  unstable  money  and  a  fluctuating  currency. 

We  recommend  that  the  prohibitory  ten  per  cent,  tax  on  State 
bank  issues  be  repealed. 

Public  office  is  a  public  trust.  We  reaffirm  the  declaration  of  the 
Democratic  National  Convention  of  1876,  for  the  reform  of  the  Civil 
Service,  and  we  call  for  the  honest  enforcement  of  all  laws  regulat- 
ing the  same.  The  nomination  of  a  President,  as  in  the  recent  Repub- 
lican  Convention,  by  delegates  composed  largely  of  his  appointees, 
holding  office  at  his  pleasure,  is  a  scandalous  satire  upon  free  popular 
institutions,  and  a  startling  illustration  of  the  methods  by  which  a 
President  may  gratify  his  ambition.  We  denounce  a  policy  under 
which  Federal  officeholders  usurp  control  of  party  conventions  in  the 
States,  and  we  pledge  the  Democratic  party  to  the  reform  of  these 
and  all  other  abuses  which  threaten  individual  and  local  self-govern- 
ment. 

The  Democratic  party  is  the  only  party  that  has  ever  given  the 
country  a  foreign  policy  consistent  and  vigorous,  compelling  respect 
abroad  and  inspiring  confidence  at  home.  While  avoiding  entangling 
alliances,  it  has  aimed  to  cultivate  friendly  relations  with  other  na- 
tions, and  especially  with  our  neighbors  on  the  American  continent, 
whose  destiny  is  closely  linked  with  our  own,  and  we  view  with  alarm 
the  tendency  to  a  policy  of  irritation  and  bluster,  which  is  liable  at 
any  time  to  confront  us  with  the  alternative  of  humiliation  or  war. 

We  favor  the  maintenance  of  a  navy  strong  enough  for  all  pur- 
poses of  national  defense,  and  to  properly  maintain  the  honor  and 
dignity  of  the  country  abroad. 

This  country  has  always  been  the  refuge  of  the  oppressed  from  ev- 
ery land — exiles  for  conscience  sake — and  in  the  spirit  of  the  founders 
of  our  Government,  we  condemn  the  oppression  practiced  by  the  Rus- 
sian Government  upon  its  Lutheran  and  Jewish  subjects,  and  we  call 
upon  our  National  Government,  in  the  interest  of  justice  and  human- 


DOCUMENTARY    HISTORY   OF  THE   EPOCH.  555 

ity,  by  all  just  and  proper  means,  to  use  its  prompt  and  best  efforts  to 
bring  about  a  cessation  of  these  cruel  persecutions  in  the  dominions 
of  the  Czar,  and  to  secure  to  the  oppressed  equal  rights. 

We  tender  our  profound  and  earnest  sympathy  to  those  lovers  of 
freedom  who  are  struggling  for  home  rule  and  the  great  cause  of 
local  self-government  in  Ireland. 

We  heartily  approve  all  legitimate  efforts  to  prevent  the  United 
States  from  being  used  as  the  dumping-ground  for  the  known  crim- 
inals and  professional  paupers  of  Europe,  and  we  demand  the  rigid 
enforcement  of  the  laws  against  Chinese  immigration,  or  the  impor- 
tation of  foreign  workmen  under  contract,  to  degrade  American 
labor  and  lessen  its  wages;  but  we  condemn  and  denounce  any  and  all 
attempts  to  restrict  the  immigration. of  the  industrious  and  worthy 
of  foreign  lands. 

This  Convention  hereby  renews  the  expression  of  appreciation  of 
the  patriotism  of  the  soldiers  and  sailors  of  the  Union  in  the  war  for 
its  preservation,  and  we  favor  just  and  liberal  pensions  for  all  dis- 
abled Union  soldiers,  their  widows  and  dependents;  but  we  demand 
that  the  work  of  the  Pension  Office  shall  be  done  industriously,  im- 
partially, and  honestly.  We  denounce  the  present  administration  of 
that  office  as  incompetent,  corrupt,  disgraceful,  and  dishonest. 

The  Federal  Government  should  care  for  and  improve  the  Missis- 
sippi River  and  other  great  waterways  of  the  Republic,  so  as  to  se- 
cure for  the  interior  States  easy  and  cheap  transportation  to  the 
tide-wrater,  when  any  waterway  of  the  public  is  of  sufficient  impor- 
tance, to  demand  the  aid  of  the  Government,  that  such  aid  should 
be  extended  upon  a  definite  plan  of  continuous  work  until  permanent 
improvement  is  secured. 

For  purposes  of  national  defense  and  the  promotion  of  commerce 
between  the  States,  we  recognize  the  early  construction  of  the  Nicar- 
agua Canal  and  its  protection  against  foreign  control  as  of  great  im- 
portance to  the  United  States. 

Recognizing  the  World's  Columbian  Exposition  as  a  national  un- 
dertaking of  vast  importance,  in  which  the  General  Government  has 
invited  the  co-operation  of  all  the  powers  of  the  world,  and  appre- 
ciating the  acceptance  by  many  of  such  powers  of  the  invitation  thus 
extended,  and  the  broad  and  liberal  efforts  being  made  by  them  to 
contribute  to  the  grandeur  of  the  undertaking,  we  are  of  the  opinion 
that  Congress  should  make  such  necessary  financial  provision  as  shall 
be  requisite  to  the  maintenance  of  the  national  honor  and  public 
faith. 

Popular  education  being  the  only  safe  basis  of  popular  suffrage, 
we  recommend  to  the  several  States  most  liberal  appropriations  for 


556  HISTORY   OF  THE   REPUBLICAN    PARTY. 

the  public  schools.  Free  common  schools  are  the  nursery  of  good 
government,  and  they  have  always  received  the  fostering  care  of  the 
Democratic  party,  which  favors  every  means  of  increasing  intelli- 
gence. Freedom  of  education,  being  an  essential  of  civil  and  reli- 
gious liberty,  as  well  as  a  necessity  for  the  development  of  intelli- 
gence, must  not  be  interfered  with  under  any  pretext  whatever.  We 
are  opposed  to  State  interference  with  parental  rights  and  rights  of 
conscience  in  the  education  of  children,  as  an  infringement  of  the 
fundamental  Democratic  doctrine  that  the  largest  individual  liberty, 
consistent  with  the  rights  of  others,  insures  the  highest  type  of 
American  citizenship  and  the  best  government. 

We  approve  the  action  of  the  present  House  of  Representatives  in 
passing  bills  for  the  admission  into  the  Union  as  States  of  the  Terri- 
tories of  New  Mexico  and  Arizona,  and  we  favor  the  early  admission 
of  all  the  Territories  having  necessary  population  and  resources  to 
admit  them  to  Statehood,  and  while  they  remain  Territories  we  hold 
that  the  officials  appointed  to  administer  the  government  of  any 
Territory,  together  with  the  District  of  Columbia  and  Alaska,  should 
be  bona-fide  residents  of  the  Territory  or  District  in  which  their  duties 
are  to  be  performed.  The  Democratic  party  believes  in  home  rule 
and  the  control  of  their  own  affairs  by  the  people  of  the  vicinage. 

We  favor  legislation  by  Congress  and  State  Legislatures  to  pro- 
tect the  lives  and  limbs  of  railway  employees  and  those  of  other 
hazardous  transportation  companies,  and  denounce  the  inactivity  of 
the  Republican  party,  and  particularly  the  Republican  Senate,  for 
causing  the  defeat  of  measures  beneficial  and  protective  to  this 
class  of  wage-workers. 

We  are  in  favor  of  the  enactment  by  the  States  of  laws  for  abolish- 
ing the  notorious  sweating  system,  for  abolishing  contract  convict 
labor,  and  for  prohibiting  the  employment  in  factories  of  children 
under  fifteen  years  of  age. 

We  are  opposed  to  all  sumptuary  laws  as  an  interference  with  the 
individual  rights  of  the  citizen. 

Upon  this  statement  of  principles  and  policies  the  Democratic 
party  asks  the  intelligent  judgment  of  the  American  people.  It  asks 
a  change  of  administration  and  a  change  of  party  in  order  that  there 
may  be  a  change  of  svstem  and  a  change  of  methods,  thus  assurinc;  the 

«~  */  <~*  ^ 

maintenance  unimpaired  of  institutions  under  which  the  Republic 
has  grown  great  and  powerful. 

DEMANDS   OF   THE   POPULISTS,    1892. 

We  demand  a  national  currency,  safe,  sound,  and  flexible,  issued 
by  the  General  Government  only,  a  full  legal  tender  for  all  debts,  pub- 


DOCUMENTARY   HISTORY   OF  THE   EPOCH.  557 

lie  and  private,  and  that  without  the  use  of  banking  corporations,  a 
just,  equitable,  and  efficient  means  of  distribution  direct  to  the  people, 
at  a  tax  not  to  exceed  2  per  cent,  per  annum,  to  be  provided  as  set 
forth  in  the  sub-treasury  plan  of  the  Farmers'  Alliance,  or  a  better 
system;  also  by  payments  in  discharge  of  its  obligations  for  public 
improvements. 

1.  We  demand  free  and  unlimited  coinage  of  silver  and  gold  at  the 
present  legal  ratio  of  16  to  1. 

2.  We  demand  that  the  amount  of  circulating  medium  be  speedily 
increased  to  not  less  than  $50  per  capita. 

3.  We  demand  a  graduated  income  tax. 

4.  We  believe  that  the  money  of  the  country  should  be  kept  as 
much  as  possible  in  the  hands  of  the  people,  and  hence  we  demand 
that  all  State  and  national  revenues  shall  be  limited  to  the  necessary 
expenses  of  the  Government,  economically  and  honestly  administered. 

5.  We  demand  that  postal  savings  banks  be  established  by  the 
Government  for  the  safe  deposit  of  the  earnings  of  the  people  and  to 
facilitate  exchange. 

REPUBLICAN  PLATFORM  OF  1896. 

The  Republicans  of  the  United  States,  assembled  by  their  repre- 
sentatives in  National  Convention,  appealing  for  the  popular  and  his- 
torical justification  of  their  claims  to  the  matchless  achievements  of 
thirty  years  of  Republican  rule,  earnestly  and  confidentially  address 
themselves  to  the  awakened  intelligence,  experience,  and  conscience 
of  their  countrymen  in  the  following  declaration  of  facts  and  prin- 
ciples: 

For  the  first  time  since  the  Civil  War  the  American  people  have 
witnessed  the  calamitous  consequences  of  full  and  unrestricted 
Democratic  control  of  the  Government.  It  has  been  a  record  of  un- 
paralleled incapacity,  dishonor,  and  disaster.  In  administrative 
management  it  has  ruthlessly  sacrificed  indispensable  revenue,  en- 
tailed an  unceasing  deficit,  eked  out  ordinary  current  expenses  with 
borrowed  money,  piled  up  the  public  debt  by  $262,000,000  in  time 
of  peace,  forced  an  adverse  balance  of  trade,  kept  a  perpetual  menace 
hanging  over  the  redemption  fund,  pawned  American  credit  to  alien 
syndicates,  and  reversed  all  the  measures  and  results  of  successful 
Republican  rule.  In  the  broad  effect  of  its  policy  it  has  precipitated 
panic,  blighted  industry  and  trade  writh  prolonged  depression,  closed 
factories,  reduced  work  and  wages,  halted  enterprise,  and  crippled 
American  production  while  stimulating  foreign  production  for  the 
American  market.  Every  consideration  of  public  safety  and  individ- 
ual interest  demands  that  the  Government  shall  be  rescued  from  the 


558  HISTORY   OF  THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

hands  of  those  who  have  shown  themselves  incapable  to  conduct  it 
without  disaster  at  home  and  dishonor  abroad,  and  shall  be  restored 
to  the  party  which  for  thirty  years  administered  it  with  unequaled 
success  and  prosperity.  And  in  this  connection  we  heartily  indorse 
the  wisdom,  patriotism,  and  the  success  of  the  administration  of 
President  Harrison. 

We  renew  and  emphasize  our  allegiance  to  the  policy  of  protection 
as  the  bulwark  of  American  industrial  independence  and  the  founda- 
tion of  American  development  and  prosperity.  This  true  American 
policy  taxes  foreign  products  and  encourages  home  industry;  it  puts 
the  burden  of  revenue  on  foreign  goods;  it  secures  the  American  mar- 
ket for  the  American  producer;  it  upholds  the  American  standard  of 
wages  for  the  American  workingman;  it  puts  the  factory  by  the  side 
of  the  farm,  and  makes  the  American  farmer  less  dependent  on  for- 
eign demand  and  price;  it  diffuses  general  thrift,  and  founds  the 
strength  of  all  on  the  strength  of  each.  In  its  reasonable  applica- 
tion it  is  just,  fair,  and  impartial,  equally  opposed  to  foreign  control 
and  domestic  monopoly,  to  sectional  discrimination,  and  individual 
favoritism. 

We  denounce  the  present  Democratic  tariff  as  sectional,  injurious 
to  the  public  credit,  and  destructive  to  business  enterprise.  We  de- 
mand such  an  equitable  tariff  on  foreign  imports  which  come  into 
competition  with  American  products  as  will  not  only  furnish  ade- 
quate revenue  for  the  necessary  expenses  of  the  Government,  but  will 
protect  American  labor  from  degradation  to  the  wage  level  of  other 
lands.  We  are  not  pledged  to  any  particular  schedules.  The  ques- 
tion of  rates  is  a  practical  question,  to  be  governed  by  the  conditions 
of  the  time  and  of  production;  the  ruling  and  uncompromising  prin- 
ciple is  the  protection  and  development  of  American  labor  and  in- 
dustry. The  country  demands  a  right  settlement,  and  then  it  wants 
rest. 

We  believe  the  repeal  of  the  reciprocity  arrangements  negotiated 
by  the  last  Republican  Administration  was  a  National  calamity,  and 
we  demand  their  renewal  and  extension  on  such  terms  as  will  equalize 
our  trade  with  other  nations,  remove  the  restrictions  which  now  ob- 
struct the  sale  of  American  products  in  the  ports  of  other  countries, 
and  secure  enlarged  markets  for  the  products  of  our  farms,  forests, 
and  factories. 

Protection  and  reciprocity  are  twin  measures  of  Republican  policy, 
and  go  hand  in  hand.  Democratic  rule  has  recklessly  struck  down 
both,  and  both  must  be  re-established.  Protection  for  wThat  we  pro- 
duce; free  admission  for  the  necessaries  of  life  which  we  do  not  pro- 
duce; reciprocal  agreements  of  mutual  interests  which  gain  open 


DOCUMENTARY   HISTORY   OF   THE   EPOCH.  559 

markets  for  us  in  return  for  our  open  market  to  others.  Protection 
builds  up  domestic  industry  and  trade  and  secures  our  own  market  for 
ourselves;  reciprocity  builds  up  foreign  trade  and  finds  an  outlet  for 
our  surplus. 

We  condemn  the  present  Administration  for  not  keeping  faith  with 
the  sugar  producers  of  this  country.  The  Republican  party  favors 
such  protection  as  will  lead  to  the  production  on  American  soil  of  all 
the  sugar  which  the  American  people  use,  and  for  which  they  pay 
other  countries  more  than  1100,000,000  annually. 

To  all  our  products — to  those  of  the  mine  and  the  field  as  well  as 
those  of  the  shop  and  the  factory — to  hemp,  to  wool,  the  product  of 
the  great  industry  of  sheep  husbandry,  as  well  as  to  the  finished 
woolens  of  the  mills,  we  promise  the  most  ample  protection. 

We  favor  restoring  the  early  American  policy  of  discriminating 
duties  for  the  upbuilding  of  our  merchant  marine  and  the  protection* 
of  our  shipping  in  the  foreign  carrying  trade,  so  that  American  ships 
—the  product  of  American  labor  employed  in  American  shipyards, 
sailing  under  the  Stars  and  Stripes,  and  manned,  officered,  and  owned 
by  Americans — may  regain  the  carrying  of  our  foreign  commerce. 

The  Republican  party  is  unreservedly  for  sound  money.  It  caused 
the  enactment  of  the  law  providing  for  the  resumption  of  specie  pay- 
ments in  1879;  since  then  every  dollar  has  been  as  good  as  gold.  We 
are  unalterably  opposed  to  every  measure  calculated  to  debase  our 
currency  or  impair  the  credit  of  our  country.  We  are  therefore  op- 
posed to  the  free  coinage  of  silver,  except  by  international  agreement 
with  the  leading  commercial  nations  of  the  world,  which  we  pledge 
ourselves  to  promote,  and  until  such  agreement  can  be  obtained  the 
existing  gold  standard  must  be  preserved.  All  our  silver  and  paper 
currency  must  be  maintained  at  parity  with  gold,  and  we  favor  all 
measures  designed  to  maintain  inviolably  the  obligations  of  the 
United  States,  and  all  our  money,  whether  coin  or  paper,  at  the  pres- 
ent standard,  the  standard  of  the  most  enlightened  nations  of  the 
earth. 

The  veterans  of  the  Union  armies  deserve  and  should  receive  fair 
treatment  and  generous  recognition.  Whenever  practicable  they 
should  be  given  the  preference  in  the  matter  of  employment,  and  they 
are  entitled  to  the  enactment  of  such  laws  as  are  best  calculated  to 
secure  the  fulfillment  of  the  pledges  made  to  them  in  the  dark  days  of 
the  country's  peril.  We  denounce  the  practice  in  the  Pension  Bu- 
reau, so  recklessly  and  unjustly  carried  on  by  the  present  Administra- 
tion, of  reducing  pensions  and  arbitrarily  dropping  names  from  the 
rolls,  as  deserving  the  severest  condemnation  of  the  American  people. 

Our  foreign  policy  should  be  at  all  times  firm,  vigorous,  and  dig- 


560  HISTORY   OF  THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

nified,  and  all  our  interests  in  the  Western  Hemisphere  carefully 
watched  and  guarded.  The  Hawaiian  Islands  should  be  controlled 
by  the  United  States,  and  no  foreign  power  should  be  permitted  to  in- 
terfere with  them;  the  Nicaraguan  Canal  should  be  built,  owned,  and 
operated  by  the  United  States,  and  by  the  purchase  of  the  Danish 
Islands  we  would  secure  a  proper  and  much-needed  naval  station  in 
the  West  Indies. 

The  massacres  in  Armenia  have  aroused  the  deep  sympathy  and 
just  indignation  of  the  American  people,  and  we  believe  that  the 
United  States  should  exercise  all  the  influence  it  can  properly  exert 
to  bring  these  atrocities  to  an  end.  In  Turkey,  American  residents 
have  been  exposed  to  the  gravest  dangers  and  American  property 
destroyed.  There  and  everywhere  American  citizens  and  American 
property  must  be  absolutely  protected  at  all  hazards  and  at  any  cost. 

We  reassert  the  Monroe  Doctrine  in  its  full  extent,  and  we  reaffirm 
the  right  of  the  United  States  to  give  the  doctrine  effect  by  responding 
to  the  appeal  of  any  American  States  for  friendly  intervention  in  case 
of  European  encroachment.  We  have  not  interfered,  and  shall  not 
interfere,  with  the  existing  possessions  of  any  European  power  in  this 
hemisphere,  but  these  possessions  must  not,  on  any  pretext,  be  ex- 
tended. We  hopefully  look  forward  to  the  eventual  withdrawal  of 
the  European  powers  from  this  hemisphere,  and  to  the  ultimate  union 
of  all  of  the  English-speaking  part  of  the  continent  by  the  free  con- 
sent of  its  inhabitants. 

From  the  hour  of  achieving  their  own  independence  the  people 
of  the  United  States  have  regarded  with  sympathy  the  struggles  of 
other  American  peoples  to  free  themselves  from  European  domina- 
tion. We  watch  with  deep  and  abiding  interest  the  heroic  battle  of 
the  Cuban  patriots  against  cruelty  and  oppression,  and  our  best  hopes 
go  out  for  the  full  success  of  their  determined  contest  for  liberty. 

The  Government  of  Spain,  having  lost  control  of  Cuba,  and  being 
unable  to  protect  the  property  or  lives  of  resident  American  citizens, 
or  to  comply  with  its  treaty  obligations,  we  believe  that  the  Gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States  should  actively  use  its  influence  and 
good  offices  to  restore  peace  and  give  independence  to  the  island. 

The  peace  and  security  of  the  Republic  and  the  maintenance  of  its 
rightful  influence  among  the  nations  of  the  earth  demand  a  naval 
power  commensurate  with  its  position  and  responsibility.  We  there- 
fore favor  the  continued  enlargement  of  the  navy,  and  a  complete 
system  of  harbor  and  seacoast  defenses. 

For  the  protection  of  the  quality  of  our  American  citizenship,  and 
of  the  wages  of  our  workingmen  against  the  fatal  competition  of  low- 
priced  labor,  wre  demand  that  the  immigration  laws  be  thoroughly  en- 


DOCUMENTARY    HISTORY   OF   THE   EPOCH.  561 

forced,  and  so  extended  as  to  exclude  from  entrance  to  the  United 
States  those  who  can  neither  read  nor  write. 

The  Civil-service  law  was  placed  on  the  statute  book  by  the  Repub- 
lican party,  which  has  always  sustained  it,  and  we  renew  our  re- 
peated declarations  that  it  shall  be  thoroughly  and  honestly  en- 
forced and  extended  wherever  practicable. 

We  demand  that  every  citizen  of  the  United  States  shall  be  allowed 
to  cast  one  free  and  unrestricted  ballot,  and  that  such  ballot  shall  be 
counted  and  returned  as  cast. 

We  proclaim  our  unqualified  condemnation  of  the  uncivilized  and 
barbarous  practice,  well  known  as  lynching  or  killing  of  human  be- 
ings, suspected  or  charged  with  crime,  without  process  of  law. 

We  favor  the  creation  of  a  National  Board  of  Arbitration  to  settle 
and  adjust  differences  which  may  arise  between  employers  and  em- 
ployed engaged  in  interstate  commerce. 

We  believe  in  an  immediate  return  to  the  free-homestead  policy  of 
the  Republican  party,  and  urge  the  passage  by  Congress  of  a  sat- 
isfactory free-homestead  measure  such  as  has  already  passed  the 
House  and  is  now  pending  in  the  Senate. 

We  favor  the  admission  of  the  remaining  Territories  at  the  earliest 
practicable  date,  having  due  regard  to  the  interests  of  the  people  of 
the  Territories  and  of  the  United  States.  All  the  Federal  officers  ap- 
pointed for  the  Territories  should  be  selected  from  bona-fide  residents 
thereof,  and  the  right  of  self-government  should  be  accorded  as  far  as 
practicable. 

We  believe  the  citizens  of  Alaska  should  have  representation  in  the 
Congress  of  the  United  States,  to  the  end  that  needful  legislation  may 
be  intelligently  enacted. 

We  sympathize  with  all  wise  and  legitimate  efforts  to  lessen  and 
prevent  the  evils  of  intemperance  and  promote  morality. 

The  Republican  party  is  mindful  of  the  rights  and  interests  of 
women.  Protection  of  American  industries  includes  equal  oppor- 
tunities, equal  pay  for  equal  work,  and  protection  to  the  home.  We 
favor  the  admission  of  women  to  wider  spheres  of  usefulness,  and 
welcome  their  co-operation  in  rescuing  the  country  from  Democratic 
and  Populistic  mismanagement  and  misrule. 

Such  are  the  principles  and  policies  of  the  Republican  party.  By 
these  principles  we  will  abide,  and  these  policies  we  will  put  into  ex- 
ecution. We  ask  for  them  the  considerate  judgment  of  the  American 
people.  Confident  alike  in  the  history  of  our  great  party  and  in  the 
justice  of  our  cause,  wre  present  our  platform  and  our  candidates  in 
the  full  assurance  that  the  election  will  bring  victory  to  the  Repub- 
lican party  and  prosperity  to  the  people  of  the  United  States. 


562  HISTORY  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

DEMOCRATIC  PLATFORM  OF  1896. 

We  the  Democrats  of  the  United  States  in  National  Convention  as- 
sembled, do  reaffirm  our  allegiance  to  those  great  essential  principles 
of  justice  and  liberty  upon  which  our  institutions  are  founded,  and 
which  the  Democratic  party  has  advocated  from  Jefferson's  time  to 
our  own — freedom  of  speech,  freedom  of  the  press,  freedom  of  con- 
science, the  preservation  of  personal  rights,  the  equality  of  all  citizens 
before  the  law  and  the  faithful  observance  of  constitutional  limita- 
tions. 

During  all  these  years  the  Democratic  party  has  resisted  the  ten- 
dency of  selfish  interests  to  the  centralization  of  governmental  power, 
and  steadfastly  maintained  the  integrity  of  the  dual  scheme  of  gov- 
ernment established  by  the  founders  of  this  Republic  of  Republics. 
Under  its  guidance  and  teachings  the  great  principle  of  local  self-gov- 
ernment has  found  its  best  expression  in  the  maintenance  of  the 
rights  of  the  States  and  in  its  assertion  of  the  necessity  of  confining 
the  General  Government  to  the  exercise  of  the  powers  granted  by  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

Recognizing  that  the  money  system  is  paramount  to  all  others  at 
this  time,  we  invite  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  Federal  Constitu- 
tion names  silver  and  gold  together  as  the  money  metals  of  the 
United  States,  and  that  the  first  coinage  law  passed  by  Congress 
under  the  Constitution  made  the  silver  dollar  the  monetary  unit  and 
admitted  'gold  to  free  coinage  at  a  ratio  based  upon  the  silver  dollar 
unit. 

We  declare  that  the  Act  of  1873  demonetizing  silver  without  the 
knowledge  or  approval  of  the  American  people  has  resulted  in  the 
appreciation  of  gold  and  a  corresponding  fall  in  the  prices  of  com- 
modities produced  by  the  people;  a  heavy  increase  in  the  burden  of 
taxation  and  of  all  debts  public  and  private;  the  enrichment  of  the 
money  lending  class  at  home  and  abroad;  prostration  of  industry  and 
impoverishment  of  the  people. 

We  are  unalterably  opposed  to  monometallism,  which  has  locked 
fast  the  prosperity  of  an  industrial  people  in  the  paralysis  of  hard 
times.  Gold  monometallism  is  a  British  policy,  and  its  adoption 
has  brought  other  nations  into  financial  servitude  to  London.  It  is 
not  only  un-American  but  anti-American,  and  it  can  be  fastened  on 
the  United  States  only  by  the  stifling  of  that  spirit  and  love  of  liberty 
which  proclaimed  our  political  independence  in  1776  and  won  it  in  the 
War  of  the  Revolution. 

We  demand  the  free  and  unlimited  coinage  of  both  gold  and  silver 
at  the  present  legal  ratio  of  16  to  1,  without  waiting  for  the  aid  or 


DOCUMENTARY    HISTORY   OF   THE   EPOCH.  563 

consent  of  any  other  nation.  We  demand  that  the  standard  silver 
dollar  shall  be  a  full  legal  tender,  equally  with  gold,  for  all  debts, 
public  and  private,  and  we  favor  such  legislation  as  will  prevent  for 
the  future  the  demonetization  of  any  kind  of  legal  tender  money  by 
private  contract. 

We  are  opposed  to  the  policy  and  practice  of  surrendering  to  the 
holders  of  obligations  of  the  United  States  the  option  reserved  by 
law  to  the  Government  of  redeeming  such  obligations  in  either  silver 
coin  or  gold  coin. 

We  are  opposed  to  the  issuing  of  interest-bearing  bonds  of  the 
United  States  in  time  of  peace,  and  condemn  the  trafficking  with 
banking  syndicates  which,  in  exchange  for  bonds,  at  an  enormous 
profit  to  themselves,  supply  the  Federal  Treasury  with  gold  to  main- 
tain the  policy  of  gold  monometallism. 

Congress  alone  has  power  to  coin  and  issue  money,  and  President 
Jackson  declared  that  this  power  could  not  be  delegated  to  corpora- 
tions or  to  individuals.  We,  therefore,  denounce  the  issuance  of 
notes  as  money  for  national  banks  as  in  derogation  of  the  Constitu- 
tion, and  we  demand  that  all  paper  which  is  made  legal  tender  for 
public  and  private  debts  or  which  is  receivable  for  dues  to  the  United 
States  shall  be  issued  by  the  Government  of  the  United  States  and 
shall  be  redeemable  in  coin. 

We  hold  that  tariff  duties  should  be  levied  for  purposes  of  revenue, 
such  duties  to  be  so  adjusted  as  to  operate  equally  throughout  the 
country,  and  not  discriminate  between  class  or  section,  and  that  taxa- 
tion should  be  limited  by  the  needs  of  the  Government  honestly  and 
economically  administered.  We  denounce  as  disturbing  to  business 
the  Republican  threat  to  restore  the  McKinley  law,  which  has  been 
twice  condemned  by  the  people  in  national  elections,  and  which,  en- 
acted under  the  false  plea  of  protection  to  home  industry,  proved  a 
prolific  breeder  of  trusts  and  monopolies,  enriched  the  few  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  many,  restricted  trade,  and  deprived  the  producers  of  the 
great  American  staples  of  access  to  their  natural  markets.  Until  the 
money  question  is  settled  we  are  opposed  to  any  agitation  for  further 
change  in  our  tariff  laws,  except  such  as  are  necessary  to  make  up  the 
deficit  in  revenue  caused  by  the  adverse  decision  of  the  Supreme 
Court  on  the  income  tax.  But  for  this  decision  by  the  Supreme 
Court  there  would  be  no  deficit  in  the  revenues  under  the  law  passed 
by  a  Democratic  Congress  in  strict  pursuance  of  the  uniform  deci- 
sions of  that  court  for  nearly  one  hundred  years,  that  court  having 
sustained  constitutional  objections  to  its  enactment  which  have  been 
overruled  by  the  ablest  judges  who  have  ever  sat  on  that  bench. 

W7e  declare  that  it  is  the  duty  of  Congress  to  use  all  the  constitu- 


564  HISTORY   OF  THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY. 

tional  power  which  remains  after  that  decision,  or  which  may  come 
from  its  reversal  by  the  court  as  it  may  hereafter  be  constituted,  so 
that  the  burden  of  taxation  may  be  equally  and  impartially  laid,  to 
the  end  that  wealth  may  bear  its  proportion  of  the  expenses  of  the 
government. 

We  hold  that  the  most  efficient  way  of  protecting  American  labor 
is  to  prevent  the  importation  of  foreign  pauper  labor  to  compete  with 
it  in  the  home  market,  and  that  the  value  of  the  home  market  to  our 
American  farmers  and  artisans  is  greatly  reduced  by  a  vicious  mone- 
tary system  which  depresses  the  prices  of  their  products  below  the 
cost  of  production  and  thus  deprives  them  of  the  means  of  purchasing 
the  products  of  our  home  manufactures. 

The  absorption  of  wealth  by  the  few,  the  consolidation  of  our  lead- 
ing railroad  systems,  and  the  formation  of  trusts  and  pools  require  a 
stricter  control  by  the  Federal  Government  of  those  arteries  of  com- 
merce. We  demand  the  enlargement  of  the  powers  of  the  Interstate 
Commerce  Commission  and  such  restrictions  and  guaranties  in  the 
control  of  railroads  as  will  protect  the  people  from  robbery  and 
oppression. 

We  denounce  the  profligate  waste  of  the  money  wrung  from  the 
people  by  oppressive  taxation  and  the  lavish  appropriations  of  recent 
Republican  Congresses,  which  have  kept  taxes  high  while  the  labor 
that  pays  them  is  unemployed  and  the  products  of  the  people's  toil 
are  depressed  in  prices  till  they  no  longer  repay  the  cost  of  produc- 
tion. We  demand  a  return  to  that  simplicity  and  economy  which  be- 
fits a  Democratic  Government  and  a  reduction  in  the  number  of  use- 
less offices,  the  salaries  of  which  drain  the  substance  of  the  people. 

We  denounce  the  arbitrary  interference  by  Federal  authorities  in 
local  affairs  as  a  violation  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 
and  a  crime  against  free  institutions,  and  we  especially  object  to 
government  by  injunction  as  a  new  and  highly  dangerous  form  of  op- 
pression by  which  Federal  judges,  in  contempt  of  the  laws  of  the 
States  and  rights  of  citizens,  become  at  once  legislators,  judges,  and 
executioners;  and  we  approve  the  bill  passed  at  the  last  session  of  the 
United  States  Senate,  and  now  pending  in  the  House,  relative  to 
contempts  of  Federal  courts,  and  providing  for  trials  by  jury  in  cer- 
tain cases  of  contempt. 

No  discrimination  should  be  indulged  in  by  the  government  of  the 
United  States  in  favor  of  any  of  its  debtors.  We  approve  of  the  re- 
fusal of  the  53d  Congress  to  pass  the  Pacific  Railroad  Funding 
bill;  and  denounce  the  effort  of  the  present  Republican  Congress  to 
enact  a  similar  measure. 

Recognizing  the  just  claims  of  deserving  Union  soldiers,  we  heartily 


DOCUMENTARY   HISTORY   OF  THE   EPOCH.  565 

indorse  the  rule  of  Commissioner  Murphy  that  no  names  shall  be 
arbitrarily  dropped  from  the  pension  roll,  and  the  fact  of  enlistment 
and  service  should  be  deemed  conclusive  evidence  against  disease  and 
disability  before  enlistment. 

We  favor  the  admission  of  the  Territories  of  New  Mexico  and  Ari- 
zona into  the  Union  as  States,  and  we  favor  the  early  admission  of  all 
the  Territories  having  the  necessary  population  and  resources  to  en- 
title them  to  Statehood,  and  while  they  remain  Territories  we  hold 
that  the  officials  appointed  to  administer  the  government  of  any  Ter- 
ritory, together  with  the  District  of  Columbia  and  Alaska,  should  be 
bona  fide  residents  of  the  Territory  or  district  in  which  their  duties  are 
to  be  performed.  The  Democratic  party  believes  in  home  rule,  and 
that  all  public  lands  of  the  United  States  should  be  appropriated  to 
the  establishment  of  free  homes  for  American  citizens. 

We  recommend  that  the  territory  of  Alaska  be  granted  a  delegate 
in  Congress,  and  that  the  general  land  and  timber  laws  of  the  United 
States  be  extended  to  said  Territory. 

We  extend  our  sympathy  to  the  people  of  Cuba  in  their  heroic 
struggle  for  liberty  and  independence. 

We  are  opposed  to  life  tenure  in  the  public  service.  We  favor 
appointments  based  upon  merit,  fixed  terms  of  office,  and  such  an  ad- 
ministration of  the  civil-service  laws  as  will  afford  equal  opportunities 
to  all  citizens  of  ascertained  fitness. 

We  declare  it  to  be  the  unwritten  law  of  this  Republic,  established 
by  custom  and  usage  of  one  hundred  years,  and  sanctioned  by  the 
examples  of  the  greatest  and  wisest  of  those  who  founded  and  have 
maintained  our  Government,  that  no  man  should  be  eligible  for  a 
third  term  of  the  Presidential  office. 

The  Federal  Government  should  care  for  and  improve  the  Missis- 
sippi River  and  other  great  waterways  of  the  Republic,  so  as  to  se- 
cure for  the  interior  States  easy  and  cheap  transportation  to  tide 
water.  When  any  waterway  of  the  Republic  is  of  sufficient  impor- 
tance to  demand  aid  of  the  Government,  such  aid  should  be  extended 
upon  a  definite  plan  of  continuous  work  until  permanent  improve- 
ment is  secured. 

Confiding  in  the  justice  of  our  cause  and  the  necessity  of  its  success 
at  the  polls,  we  submit  the  foregoing  declaration  of  principles  and 
purposes  to  the  considerate  judgment  of  the  American  people.  We 
invite  the  support  of  all  citizens  who  approve  them  and  who  desire 
to  have  them  made  effective  through  legislation  for  the  relief  of  the 
people  and  the  restoration  of  the  country's  prosperity. 


THIS   BOOK   IS  DUE   ON   THE   LAST   DATE 
STAMPED   BELOW 


RENEWED   BOOKS  ARE  SUBJECT  TO   IMMEDIATE 
RECALL 


LIBRARY,  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  DAVIS 


Book  Slip-Series  458 


232770 


Seilhamer,  G.O. 
History  of  the 


Z3Z770 


qJK2356 
SU6 
v.l 


Tts,' 
S46 


